Chapter 21: Esso Annuitants Clubs

The Esso Annuitants Club had a lot of activities, one of which was the Hiking Club which I belonged to from 1990 to 2019. It was like having a mini holiday every week from late spring till the end of September. This club allowed me to visit a lot of places in the foothills and Rockies that I might not otherwise have ever seen. We would start our hikes about 9 am and finish at around 3 pm with a half hour for lunch at some scenic spot. I would usually pack cheddar cheese sandwiches with relish and apple juice to drink. I belonged to the B1 group for ten years and moved to B2 and then to the C group as I got older. The B1 group might climb 600 meters during a hike and the C group would climb 300 meters maximum. On one of the hikes a big, strong hiker named Malcolm from the A group collapsed and had to be evacuated by helicopter to a road where an ambulance was waiting. He recovered from this incident but died later while on his exercise bike. Once while I was eating my lunch on top of a high peak in the Kananaskis I had a big orange that slipped out of my hand and rolled ever so slowly down a steep grassy slope. People in the club talked about this event for years which was kind of ridiculous. At the end of the season in September after our last hike we would have a BBQ lunch at Quirk Creek. It was great to get to meet former Esso workers and other people on these hikes but most of them are dead now. I completed my last hike at age 87. Esso Hiking Club at the entrance to Blairmore Coal Mine, late 1990s. I also attended the Esso Travelogue Club for about five years as well as the Esso Technical Club where we would get behind the scenes tours of a variety of facilities in and around the city. Every couple of years we would have lunch at the Highwood Dining Room at SAIT where culinary arts students learned their profession.