By Snigdha Agrawal
Sometimes, on a journey, the people you meet become as memorable as the places you visit.
On our recent visit to Canada, one such person was Max.
We met him at Calgary Airport, where he arrived to pick us up with his girlfriend, Jane, a warm and cheerful woman of Korean heritage. What began as a routine transfer from Calgary to our hotel in Canmore soon turned into something far more personal: a conversation about family, migration, hard work, dreams and, ultimately, the meaning of home.
Max, who introduced himself as being of Polish descent, was the first to strike up a conversation. Before long, he had taken us back a generation, to the story of his parents and the difficult journey that brought them to Canada.
In 1980, his parents fled from Poland and subsequently stayed in a refugee camp outside Vienna, waiting for a resettlement visa to Canada. When the visa finally came, they arrived in Toronto, with very little except hope, determination and the willingness to start again.
Like many immigrants starting a new life in an unfamiliar country, his father took whatever work he could find, taking on odd jobs until his skill and dedication to roofing eventually earned him recognition.
His first two English words on the job were apparently “Thank you.”
We laughed when Max shared this snippet.
It was a small beginning, but perhaps an appropriate one. Gratitude, after all, is not a bad place from which to begin a new life.
From those first words, his father slowly picked up enough English to communicate at work and eventually secure a permanent job. Within a couple of years, he took another important step: he started his own roofing company.
Little by little, the country that had once been foreign to him began to feel like home.
There were no shortcuts. There was simply work and perseverance.
Max and his sisters were born in Toronto and attended English-language schools run by parish communities. At sixteen, Max joined his father’s business, learning the roofing trade while attending college and pursuing civil engineering.
It was an early lesson in balancing education with work, and perhaps an introduction to something that would stay with him: the value of building something with his own hands.
From Roofing to the Rockies
But Max’s story, like that of many people who grow up with immigrant parents, did not simply follow the path laid out by the previous generation.
The Rockies beckoned.
In 1988, the Winter Olympics were held in Calgary, with Canmore hosting Nordic events. The once-small mining town thereafter began attracting increasing attention. Its location in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, and its proximity to Banff, helped transform it into a vibrant mountain tourism destination.
Max saw an opportunity. He moved to Canmore to start on his own. And it was very different from his father’s roofing business.
He saw the potential in tourism and came up with the idea of providing tourists with a more personalised transportation service between Calgary Airport and Canmore. Instead of the fixed pickup and drop-off points offered by public shuttles and buses, he wanted to offer something simpler and more personal: door-to-door service.
In April 2025, he started his transport company in Canmore, with one Van, providing end-to-end service.
One man, one van and an idea.
When we asked him about profitability, his answer surprised us. For now, he said, making a profit was not his main concern. He was more interested in satisfying his clients and building a reputation for good service.
And he certainly seemed to mean it.
Our ride was proof enough. From the moment we arrived at Calgary Airport, Max took care of everything. He met us at the arrival gate, helped with the large pieces of luggage, loaded them into the trunk and settled us into our seats.
Then came the music. Played softly.
Every few minutes, he would check on us.
“Are you comfortable?”
Was the air-conditioning temperature all right?
Did we need anything?
There were drinks and cookies too.
It was almost as though we had not hired a driver but acquired a very attentive travelling host.
At one point, we wondered if there was anything else he could possibly adjust.
Perhaps the mountain scenery?
That, fortunately, was beyond even Max’s control.
The route itself, however, needed no improvement. The journey from Calgary towards Canmore unfolded through some of the most spectacular scenery in the Rockies.
And Max seemed to understand that the journey was part of the experience.
His service was personalised to the nth degree. But what stayed with us was not merely the service. It was the attitude behind it.
He talked to us, answered our questions, shared stories and made the journey feel less like a transfer and more like the beginning of our Canadian experience.
In an age when customer service can sometimes feel mechanical — press a button, scan a code, follow an automated instruction — something was refreshing about Max’s natural courtesy.
Listening to him speak about his father, we could sense that the values of that earlier generation had stayed with him. There was a quiet pride in the way he spoke, not the boastful kind, but the pride of someone who knows where his family came from and understands what it took to get here.
Perhaps that explains something about Max himself.
He came across as remarkably well-mannered, respectful and considerate.
But beneath the easy conversation was also a young entrepreneur with ambition.
Max currently works part-time in a café while operating his transportation service, but he has bigger plans. He hopes to expand the business, add more vans, employ drivers and eventually introduce additional services for visitors to the region.
His father, now retired and settled in Canmore near the Bow Valley, supports his plans.
It is easy to imagine the conversation between father and son. The father who arrived in Canada with very little; the son who now wants to build something of his own – both have different businesses and belong to different times. But perhaps they share the same instinct: start small, work hard and keep building.
Keeping One Foot in Poland
There was another side to Max that emerged during our conversation. The deeply personal connection he maintains with his roots. Despite having built his life thousands of kilometres away, he had not allowed the distance to erase the connection with the family and country he came from. That connection was particularly evident in his relationship with his grandmother, who lives in Poland and whom he visits every year. This year was particularly special, as she turned 90.
Perhaps that annual journey is his way of keeping one foot firmly planted in his family’s past while the other moves forward into his own future.
It is a long journey.
But some journeys are worth repeating.
And then there is Jane. An interesting and charming pair, Max with his Polish heritage and Jane with her Taiwanese background, building their own story together in Canada. Both share a passion for travel. They have travelled across Asia and Europe, and already have another destination on their horizon: India. We smiled and suggested places to visit, to see more of India, beyond the Taj Mahal.
Here was someone whose family had crossed borders, lived through uncertainty and started again in a new country. Travel, for Max, seemed less about ticking destinations off a list and more about curiosity: about people, places, cultures and experiences.
Maybe that is what happens when your family story begins with a journey.
The world feels a little more open.
A Story Still Being Written
As our journey came to an end, we realised that we had learned much more about Max than we had expected to learn from someone simply taking us to our hotel.
We had met the son of an immigrant who arrived in Canada with very little and slowly built a life, a young entrepreneur trying to establish himself, a part-time café worker,a transport operator with expansion plans, a grandson who makes time every year to visit his grandmother, a traveller who enjoys discovering the world with the woman he loves, and, perhaps most importantly, someone still on the learning curve.
That last impression stayed with us.
Max did not give us the impression of someone who had already arrived at the finished version of his life. He seemed to be building, experimenting, learning and dreaming. His business is still young. His plans are still taking shape. There will be mistakes, lessons, unexpected expenses and the inevitable challenges that come with trying to build something from scratch.
But there was no sense of complaint when he spoke about any of it.
There was enthusiasm.
He seemed to enjoy the process — the learning, the experimenting, the gradual expansion and the satisfaction of watching an idea become a real business. Perhaps that, too, is part of his inheritance from his father.
Start with little. Work hard. Learn. Keep going. Build something of your own.
The Road Ahead
As we said goodbye, we hoped that when we return to the Rockies one day, we would see a few more vans bearing his name.
Perhaps there would even be a café he owned in Canmore.
And perhaps Max would still be there, greeting visitors with the same easy smile, checking whether the air-conditioning was comfortable and making sure everyone had enough water, coffee or cookies.
For now, though, he remains what we encountered that day: a young man carrying an old family story into a new Canadian future.
His father’s journey began with a refugee camp, a resettlement visa and a handful of uncertain beginnings. Max’s journey has taken him somewhere else: to the mountains, to entrepreneurship and towards a future he is still shaping for himself.
The destination is not yet known. But perhaps that is the most interesting part of his story.
He is still on the road.
.
Snigdha Agrawal (née Banerjee) is the author of five books, a lifelong lover of words, and the writer of the memoir Fragments of Time, available on Amazon worldwide. She lives in Bangalore (India).
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