Karin Ferguson recently celebrated her 80th birthday by fulfilling a lifelong dream to go skydiving for the first time. Her husband Ian was there to witness the memorable feat in Arizona. Ferguson proudly shows off her certificate for participating in her first jump. (Keith Lacey photo)
Karin Ferguson and her husband Ian share a sense of adventure that has seen them live in 32 different communities on several continents during their 60 years of marriage.
That same sense of adventure led to Karin doing something very special recently to celebrate her 80th birthday.
She decided to go skydiving for the first time in her life.
She loved every second of it.
Her husband was there to observe and cheer on his wife, but wanted nothing to do with joining her as he had spent more than 25 years as a pilot in the Canadian Armed Forces.
“He saw no reason to jump out of a perfectly fine airplane,” said his wife laughing.
Karin admits she has wanted to try skydiving for most of her adult life since she spent her younger days in the Canadian military working in a control tower.
“I was working in a control tower in Quebec when several members of the Van Doos had showed up to conduct some training,” she recalled. “When a few of them talked to me about joining them for a jump, I said I would like to.
“I was only 20 years of age or so at the time and I can still remember the joy on their faces when they were getting ready to jump and meeting them after they jumped. From that moment on, I had always had an inkling that I would try jumping from a plane. Unfortunately, I didn’t do it until I turned 80.”
The Fergusons have lived in Osoyoos for more than three years and spent last winter in Arizona, where they just happened to be staying only a few hundred metres from the largest skydiving training facility in the world called Skydive Arizona.
Soldiers from countries all over the world travel to this facility, including hundreds of Canadian soldiers, she said.
While observing some training runs, Karin’s good friend Margerit Ram, commented that she should sign up and jump.
“She said that this looks like so much fun that I should try it,” she said. “I went to the main office and asked a few questions and told me there was a spot available the following Monday.
“This was something I had wanted to do for a very long time and I thought it would be a wonderful way to celebrate my 80th birthday and 60th wedding anniversary, so I decided then and there that I was going to do it.”
Karin participated in a tandem jump with Jason Farmer, one of the founders of the skydiving school, who has participated in more than 20,000 tandem jumps in his career.
She still gets shivers just thinking about the experience, said Karin.
“It was absolutely wonderful and I loved it,” she said. “The only thing I was a bit concerned with was that we would be free falling for 6,000 feet when we jumped out of the plane, but that was actually the most fun part.”
It took approximately 60 seconds to free fall 6,000 feet, before Farmer pulled the ripcord to release the parachute and fall a further 7,000 feet to the ground.
The entire “bucket list” experience took roughly 20 minutes from the time she boarded the plane, climbed to 13,000 feet, jumped out and landed on the ground, she said.
A group of 20 other citizens had signed up for tandem jumps on the same plane, including several other seniors, she said.
“It was very, very exciting and I was thrilled that my husband and a few friends from Osoyoos were there to share this amazing experience with me,” she said. “It was everything I thought it would be and more. It was thrilling and fun and I’m so glad I did it.”
While he had no desire to join his wife in her skydiving adventure, Ian said he was very proud of her.
“I thought it was a very good experience and I could tell how excited she was to have finally done this,” he said. “I’m glad I was there to cheer her on.”
When she was 400 feet or so from landing, Karin asked Farmer if he would steer her towards her husband and friends for the landing and he gladly obliged.
“I landed a few feet from them,” she said. “I really wanted to share this experience with them.”
As proud members of the Baha’i Faith, the Fergusons have travelled around the world to promote their religion and help others.
“We’ve done volunteer work around the world and our faith is a big reason why we’ve travelled so extensively, especially since we retired,” she said.
They came to Osoyoos after visiting this town and the South Okanagan back in the 1970s.
“We were living in Ontario and looking for our next adventure and Ian asked, ‘Where are we going next’ and I said, ‘Osoyoos’ because I remembered that visit 35 years ago and how much we both loved the place.
“We came out three years ago without knowing a soul, but we’ve fallen in love with the beautiful weather, the mountains and the scenery. We’ve loved the past three years.”
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
