Climber resigns from national team citing climate impact of competition travel

A Victoria-based climber has decided to resign from the national climbing team due to the climate impact of travelling to competitions and his ethical dilemma of representing a country with a history of Indigenous oppression.

Tosh Sherkat, 23, has been climbing since he was a kid. He moved from Nelson, B.C., to Vancouver Island when he was 13 to join a professional climbing academy. 

"During that first year of competition, I qualified for the youth national team and was an alternate for the youth world championships that happened in central Saanich at the Boulders Climbing Gym," Sherkat said.

"After that, I thought, 'Oh I could do this. I could really kind of do this at an international level and that would be really, really cool.'"

Sherkat has spent the last nine years competing, with the last six years as part of the national team. But, as he explained in an editorial published in Gripped magazine, it was becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile the elite sport of climbing with his own beliefs. 

In mid-October, Sherkat resigned from the team.

For one, professional climbing meant travelling to competitions, most of which were outside of North America. It also means travelling to particular locations in sensitive environments. 

"So you're committing your life to flying around the world for at least a couple of years before you enjoy success at that level ... and if you wanted to be a professional climber in the outdoor realms, you have to be able to travel around to renowned places in the world and spend a lot of time in those places to be able to do those particular routes," said Sherkat.

Sherkat says other things like having to eat a lot of meat-based protein as part of his dietary regime and having to use a car to get around to fitness facilities also create more of an environmental impact than he wanted to make.

"Everyone in my generation has started thinking about the climate crisis and what our individual impacts mean here in North America," he said. 

"It was kind of an obvious thing to look at myself and go, 'What is it that I'm doing as a routine that produces the most amount of carbon?' "

Sherkat says he also took into consideration what it means to represent a country that has a history of Indigenous oppression. 

"The Canadian government has over the last couple of centuries forcibly tried to remove Indigenous people from their land so I think I had to ask myself what if I want to go to an international competition and I don't really want to represent that genocide on behalf of the Canadian government?" he said. 

Opting out of wearing a jersey was not an option, so Sherkat said he had make the decision to withdraw from the national team. He will still compete in climbing competitions on his own, but only ones that are within a set driving distance. 

"There's a reckoning coming with land claims in what we call Canada right now. The climate crisis isn't slowing down and ... we will have a reckoning with how we live our lives on a day-to-day basis," he said.

Andrew Wilson, director for Climbing Escalade Canada, the national program for sport climbing, said he respected Sherkat's decision. 

"Many of the things that have led to him making a stand about the things that he believes so passionately in are also what made him a great climber. He's disciplined, determined, and very, very passionate about what he does," Wilson said. 

"I'm obviously disappointed to see him leave the program but it takes a lot of courage to stand up for what you believe in."