Nicole Choo leaves her husband, her parents and her older sister, Natalie Choo.Whit Hassett/Supplied
On her Instagram page, Niki Choo described herself as a “biker, skier and paddler.” At times, she was also a real-estate developer, holder of an MBA degree who worked in investment banking and later an investor in startups in San Francisco.
But in the end, Ms. Choo always returned to her passion for the outdoors. “Sport has made me into a more resilient individual,” she told a podcast about her epic three-month canoe trip to the Arctic Ocean in 2022. “I have a friend who says that you have to risk it to get the biscuit.”
Ms. Choo, a member of a prominent Ottawa family, who studied and worked in Canada before moving to California, died on Feb. 17 in a catastrophic avalanche in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Lake Tahoe that killed nine backcountry skiers. Ms. Choo was one of three guides who were killed in the accident, along with six clients. She was 42.
“She was a very bright light and a great soul,” said Jim Coffey, founder and owner of Esprit Whitewater Rafting on the Ottawa River, where Ms. Choo got an early taste of outdoor adventure as a teenager. “And she perished in an incident that was part of what made her her.”
The avalanche is considered the most deadly in recent California history. The 15-member group was on the last day of a three-day backcountry ski trip when there were predictions of a high risk of avalanches. The local sheriff’s office has launched an investigation into whether there was criminal negligence involved in the deaths. Six members of the group survived.
Nicole Choo was born on March 4, 1983, in Ottawa, the second of two daughters of David Choo and Shanti Choo, both immigrants from Guyana. Her father studied engineering at Carleton University and after selling a technology company he started, turned to real estate development. His firm, Ashcroft Homes, became one of the city’s biggest home builders. (Ashcroft recently ran into financial difficulties and several of its entities were forced into receivership in 2024.)
Niki, as she was known to friends and family, attended Ottawa’s private Elmwood School and then Ashbury College, where she was a competitive swimmer and became hooked on the outdoors. She was 14 when she first went whitewater rafting along the Ottawa River.
“She was a spark of enthusiasm,” recalled Claudia Van Wijk, co-owner of Owl Rafting, where Ms. Choo eventually became a certified guide, working there for a couple of summers. “The water means so much to me,” Ms. Choo later said. “It’s the place I find the most calming and peaceful.”
She earned her BA in economics at the University of British Columbia and recalled skiing every “Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday” at Whistler, where she was a race co-ordinator and got certifications in the training of ski instructors and coaching. After graduating in 2005, she returned to Ottawa where she worked for her father’s firm as a project manager for 18 months.
Ms. Choo went back to school and earned an MBA at Western University’s Ivey School in 2008. Following a brief stint in investment banking at CIBC, she worked as a consultant in Colorado and in strategic planning at a pharmaceutical company in Boston before returning to Ottawa as a vice-president at Ashcroft Homes.
Soon after starting the job in 2013, a journalist asked her if she had always thought of joining the family business. Ms. Choo responded, “I was never really sure. There are a lot of interesting things to do and learn about in the world. I think it comes down to working with people who believe in you and your abilities.”
She left Ashcroft in 2015, moving to Boston where she earned a master’s degree at Harvard in human development and psychology. Ms. Choo then relocated to the San Francisco area where she became involved in startups as an investor and co-founder of Campsyte, an outdoor co-working space firm.
The idea was to take underutilized urban parking lots and turn them into miniparks with camping trailers, hammocks and comfortable seating where people could work or hang out while sipping kombucha or iced-coffee. She said the concept combined her interests in the outdoors, human psychology and real estate.
Asked on an entrepreneurship podcast about her unusual career, she responded, “It’s sometimes difficult for me to decide on a direction to go in because I am interested in so many things,” she said, adding, “Having lots of different interests for me is a good thing and I would never trade it, though it can have downfalls as well.”
Despite initial enthusiasm for the concept, Ms. Choo said that Campsyte was constrained by municipal bureaucracy. It ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2019.
By that time, Ms. Choo was spending a lot of time in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where she was skiing and working remotely for a subsidiary of Accenture.
She also became an “ambassador” for WeGotNext, a non-profit dedicated to getting racialized and under-represented communities more involved in outdoor activities.
“When I was a kid, I never really saw a kid who looked like me paddling or camping or skiing,” she said in a promotional video. “It should be everybody’s responsibility and right to access the outdoors.”
In early 2020, Ms. Choo had a bad ski accident. “I tore my ACL, ruptured my meniscus, broke two of my bones and dislocated my shoulder. I was like, out for the count,” she recalled later. It was also the start of the pandemic so she was stuck at home with her partner, Jared Gentz, a graphic designer. It was then that the couple started to think of plans for an epic canoe trip.
The longest canoe trip Ms. Choo had ever previously been on was two or three weeks long. Mr. Gentz had virtually no tripping experience. But they decided to attempt a long trek. “My instinct was to feel more of the Earth.”
In 2022, after two years of planning, the pair embarked on what could only be described as an extreme canoe trip. It took them from Haines, Alaska, on the Pacific Coast, first by bike and then by canoe on eight rivers, crossing the continental divide and ending up at the Arctic Ocean. A total of 1,843 kilometres.
“Why not try it?” Ms. Choo later told The Dirtbag Diaries podcast. “If we fail, it could be no sweat off our backs. It would be a cool adventure no matter what.”
Her father was supportive but clearly worried. “I know you have all the grit in the world to do this, but be cautious,” he can be heard telling his daughter during 1,000 Miles to Tuk, a documentary film about the trip, which recently won an award at the International Paddling Film Festival.
It took Ms. Choo and Mr. Gentz a week and a half to drive from California to their starting point in Alaska in June, 2022. Once in the water, they found the going much tougher than expected because of high water levels and frequent log jams. At one point, they had to double back and take another route.
But it was at the end of their journey that the couple faced their most dangerous challenge. They were on the Mackenzie River as it flowed into the Arctic Ocean and hit a storm. As night fell, they found a beach beneath a cliff and pitched their tent, convinced that they could wait it out and stay out of danger.
But they didn’t count on the storm surge and they soon realized that their canoe was taking on water and their tent was starting to flood. They had no choice but to gather their gear and head out into the waves. “They called that section of the river hurricane alley,” Ms. Choo told the podcast. “We had heard of people being swept out to sea.”
But in the end, they managed to find safety in an alternative landing spot and planted their tent in a swamp. They reached the end of their canoe trip at Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, where Mr. Gentz proposed. They were married in July, 2023.
Ms. Choo leaves her husband, her parents and her older sister, Natalie Choo, a physician in Alberta.
For Ms. Choo, there was always the pull of the outdoors. “For me, I think living my best life is about understanding my own limits and pushing them so that I’m at the threshold of my comfort zone,” she once said.
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