Revelstoke is the most enthusiastic name in winter sports. Revel: What you do when you’re stoked. I mean, really. Awesome name. And it should have come from the raw passion of miners or railroad workers or lumberjacks who on their days off drank hooch and raced barrel staves with their week’s wages at stake. But, no. This town/ski area/backcountry paradise in British Columbia was originally named Second Crossing to distinguish it from the First Crossing of the Columbia River, then Farwell for some local land baron. Eventually, Canadian Pacific Railway changed it to Revelstoke, not for unbridled glee at the deep and epic powder that falls on the town each winter, but for Lord Revelstoke, a banker who saved CPR’s ass from bankruptcy.

Well, it’s our time now, and it is what we say it is. Revel, stoked.

Photo: Revelstoke, British Columbia, by Garrett Grove