Finding His Line: Jimmy Martinello on Adventure, Family and Knowing When to Turn Back
Jimmy Martinello understands risk better than most.
The renowned adventure photographer and filmmaker grew up in Whistler, British Columbia, having moved there from the prairies at 13 after his family sold their farm. In this new setting—and in the 1980s before the famed resort town boomed into what we know today—the mountains took hold of him. Pure and simple.
By the end of high school, he was rock-climbing regularly. By his early twenties, he was off to Nepal—the first of multiple trips that took him high into the Himalayas. Ironically, given his current profession, he didn’t even bring a camera on his first trip.
His mom fixed that—and he was soon off travelling with a camera and delighting his friends and family when he returned home from his six-month forays, long before social media made photo-sharing a mainstay.
Prompted by the response from his community, Martinello began submitting images to a variety of outlets and his photography career took off without much friction. Once gear brand Patagonia published his images, sponsors followed and for years, high-risk alpinism defined his world: mixed ice-routes in the Himalayas, technical ski-lines in BC’s Waddington Range and other expeditions to places that took him to his limits and beyond.
Yet by the early 2000s, he’d even found time to start a family—and looked to incorporate his kids into this adventurous life.
Then came the avalanche.
Buried on a steep ski line on a remote mountain north face, Martinello had a moment of absolute clarity. “All I could see was my son going, ‘Dad, you’re going to be all right,’” he recalls. “I just started bawling.”
His buddies dug him out. And in the year that followed, he pulled the pin on the high-alpine game.
“I couldn’t even imagine not being here for my kids,” he says. “It just makes you rethink the purpose of life.”
The instinct was real. There’s something about becoming a parent that rewires your risk matrix entirely. I know from experience it’s a shift that’s hard to describe until it happens. Even adventures that had once seemed benign can take on a different weight through that lens.
A New Chapter
Now 52 and based in Squamish, BC, Martinello has channelled that same drive and discipline into watersports—SUP, kayaking, coastal camping—adventures that are challenging enough to be meaningful but don’t leave a family waiting at home.
“[With SUP,] you can take a bunch of gear and go camping with your friends and your kids and your family,” he says. He’s been doing exactly that—taking his kids on coastal trips to places like Vargas Island, near Tofino, and Raft Cove, on the northwest tip of Vancouver Island—since they were toddlers. His kids are 16 and 20 now. They still ask to go back every summer.
His approach to outdoor parenting is free of ego. Meet them where they are. Let them define the adventure. Don’t pressure the outcome.
I recognize this philosophy.
My twin boys are seven now, and they have a way of making any pre-set agenda irrelevant. I’d plan a hiking loop around a lake—a simple forest walk—and find them knee-deep in a pond halfway through, completely content. So I must be too.
It’s a small recalibration, but one Martinello immediately appreciates: the goal is never the destination.
“When they’re psyched to do something, then I’m psyched to engage with them,” he says. The point was never the kilometres paddled or the route completed. It was just getting outside together.
But the water has its own rules, and Martinello respects them. He took his Swift Water Rescue certification, made PFDs and release-belts non-negotiable and built a habit of running rivers solo before bringing his kids along—reading conditions firsthand, not just checking a forecast. He’s also learned to trust his gut, something he now regards as seriously as any formal training.
Safety statistics relating to PFDs are stark: the vast majority of drowning victims were not wearing a PFD at the time. It’s the most straightforward form of risk mitigation available on the water. Yet far too many go without. For an ounce of comfort, people are putting themselves in peril.
But what brand to rely on?
Well, gear that outlasts generations has a way of earning that trust. Martinello chooses Mustang Survival—the iconic BC-based brand now celebrating nearly 60 years of production. It’s something, again, we agree on. I have a family photo album full of images of me, barely out of diapers, wearing that Seahorse logo with my parents standing beside me in classic Mustang Survival Flotation Coats.
My kids and I wear these same, or similar, products today. As does Martinello’s family.
Lessons Learned
“Anytime anything’s ever happened to me, it’s because I’m not listening,” Martinello says. “If something’s really telling you over and over, don’t do it—there’s probably a reason.”
On a photoshoot in Chile’s southern fjords last fall, he held a group of younger, eager athletes back as a storm moved in. They waited an hour. It cleared, the line opened up and everyone got home safe. It’s a lesson he shares with the athletes he shoots—and with his own kids:
“Make sure you do it for you, not for somebody else. I don’t need the shot. There’s always another day,” he reminds them.
The wisdom of “turning around” is something veteran climber and explore contributor Will Gadd has written about often. Gadd’s observations—that experienced mountaineers turn back quickly and turn back often—resonates with how Martinello operates.
Personally, I’ve seen the same principle play out closer to home. While I was on a group cat-skiing trip a couple of years back, one of our members fell into a tree well. Everyone was fine in the end, but the group was rattled. There was time for one more run, but the guide called the day anyway. It was the right thing to do. That experienced guide was reading the room and listening to what the day was telling him.
That philosophy of safety and margin carries straight through to Martinello’s choices of expedition—and gear.
For the latter, he uses Mustang Survival products because he’s come to trust their durability and quality. Nowadays, he’s even a Mustang Survival ambassador despite having no Instagram account or “even a cell phone,” which says something about the kind of brand Mustang is: one that relies on authenticity and reputation. Much like Martinello.
His original Mustang Survival Hudson CCS Dry Suit and his first PFD are both still in rotation. For family water days, he relies on the Mustang Survival Khimera PFD—slim, non-restrictive, easy to forget you’re wearing. Which is exactly the point—comfortable gear gets worn.
And rest assured, the first PFD I bought for my boys was the brand’s Infant Classic PFD. They never objected to wearing it. And now, I’m trusting the REV Foam Vest (Child) for our waterborne adventures this summer. And along with the assurance of safety and quality, we’ll have images of me and my boys, at the same ages, all wearing Mustang Survival PFDs.
That’s rare.
Being on the water is meant to be joyful. But joy and complacency are different things, and the distance between them is where accidents happen. Good training, good gear, a willingness to adapt and doing it all for the right reasons. These are the things that make an impact.
And that’s easy for everyone to understand.
Top Gear for Kids & Teens
Mustang Survival REV Foam Vest
$89.99-$110.99; mustangsurvival.com
Kids don’t float. That’s why this PFD from iconic Canadian brand Mustang Survival is a summer must-have for my family. It’s comfy, with a ventilated back and soft polyester inner fabric; durable—with a ripstop nylon outer and grab loop; and comes in a fun blue-and-yellow motif or classic red. Comes in sizes for child, youth and young adult.
- Segmented foam enhances mobility
- Ventilated mesh back keeps things cool
- Grab loop
- Built-in crotch strap helps keep the vest in place
- Towable and personal watercraft (PWC) rated
- Made without PFAS
Kids Don’t Float
Every child deserves to be safe on the water—and Kids Don’t Float makes that possible. Inspired by a 1996 Alaskan initiative, RCMSAR launched free lifejacket loaner kiosks across BC in 2002, and today over 100 docks, marinas and beaches offer them at no cost.
From infants to teens aged sixed months to 16 years, any child can grab a properly fitted PFD and return it at day’s end. No barriers. Backed by police, municipalities and communities—and recognized with Canada’s Best Boating Safety Initiative Award—Kids Don’t Float is proof that protecting young lives starts with the simple mix of education and access.
This article is sponsored by Mustang Survival.
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