About Fit Frog Adventures
Walking and hiking in Calgary, Alberta’s cool little towns, the prairies, foothills, and the Rockies, that’s what Fit Frog is all about. Fit Frog Adventures began in 1997 and is both a walking and hiking club and a publishing company. Club Fit Frog organizes year-round urban walks, full day Alberta hikes, and snowshoe treks in Calgary and area. With a focus on community building in the great outdoors, Club Fit Frog events are all volunteer-led. All Club Fit Frog fees are for the organization of the day. Club Fit Frog events are updated often and you can join the club with a 6-month sampler pass or on more of a casual, drop-in basis.
Most notable published works include the bestselling Calgary’s Best Walks guidebook, now in its 3rd edition, featuring 95 different walks in the lovely city of Calgary, Alberta and Calgary’s Best Bikes Rides guidebook with 50 curated cycle tours and pathway pedals throughout the city of Calgary.
Fit Frog helps build community in Calgary through partnerships with organizations and donations of guidebooks and guided walks and bike rides.
About Lori Beattie
Lori Beattie is the face behind Fit Frog. She has been organizing and leading year-round Calgary walks, hikes, and snowshoe days since 1997. She is also the author of Calgary’s Best Walks, now in its 3rd edition, and Calgary’s Best Bike Rides, and features walking, biking, hiking, and connecting cities on foot and by bike in monthly articles in the Calgary Herald, her walk series on CBC Homestretch and many years as segment host on CTV Morning Live. She presents to groups on the pleasure of self-propelled urban exploration, being a tourist in your own city, building communities through walking, and making Calgary feel like home, one step, or pedal, at a time.
Check out Lori’s Calgary’s Best Walks series on CBC Radio and in The Calgary Herald below.
Join Club Fit Frog on an Adventure
Choose between Little Town Treks, Foothills Rambles, Prairie jaunts, and Mountain Hikes in the spring, summer, and fall, or ice walks, winter hikes and snowshoeing in the winter.
Or opt for walks closer to home with Calgary City Walks, Urban Adventures, or Spring Hiking Training.
Work with Lori
Segment Host and Content Creator
Lori creates walking, hiking and biking segments for all media. She is working with CBC RADIO the Homestretch for a summer walk series and spent three years as a regular CTV Morning Live TV segment host and content creator. Lori is keen to partner to create video content for on-line and traditional media.
LISTEN to Lori’s CBC Homestretch 2025 walk series
– Sandy Beach, Britannia, Elbow Park, Altadore, SW
– Hillhurst, Briar Hill, Hounsfield Heights, Westmount, NW
– Ogden, Lynnwood & Beaverdam Flats Park
– Bowness Park- Romeo & Juliet Trail- Calgary’s Farmer’s Market
– Bridgeland, NE Walk with Jenny
– Roxboro- Ramsay, SW-SE Walk with Jenny Howe
LISTEN to Lori’s 2025 interview on the CBC Eye Opener
READ Lori’s Calgary Herald “Ode to Walking” article
READ Lori’s Calgary Herald Walking Series (see more below)
WATCH Lori show highlights from Calgary’s Best Walks (2025) on CTV Morning Live
Donations & Partnerships
Lori believes in giving back and is happy to donate 1000’s of Calgary’s Best Bike Rides and Calgary’s Best Walks guidebooks as well as her time to lead walks and rides to local charities. She also works with organizations as a presenter, program consultant, and creator of walking initiatives and guide of custom walks.
Whether you are a charity that sees a fit for partnership, a company that would like a guided conference walk or an individual who would like to arrange a birthday trek for friends/family, connect with Lori to discuss your idea. Here are some of her ongoing and past partnerships.
- Arthur Child Cancer Centre, Alberta Cancer Foundation: 2025: Hundreds of copies of Calgary’s Best Walks guidebook donated to be placed in the treatment and waiting areas at the Arthur Child Cancer Centre.
- Alberta Wilderness Association: Guidebook donations and leading walks for Adventures in Wilderness program.
- Two Wheel View: Ongoing since 2022: Calgary’s Best Bike Rides guidebook donation for all youth in the Earn-a-Bike program: Read about the Earn-a-Bike program and Lori’s part in it in this CTV news story
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Cerebral Palsy Kids & Families: 2023: Calgary’s Best Bike Rides guidebook donation for all the kids and families in the Adapted Bike program.
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The Calgary Public Library: Ongoing since 2017: Lori guides free walks from libraries around Calgary.
- Youth En Route: 2023: Calgary’s Best Bike Rides guidebook donation for youth who are empowered by Youth En Route programs to use active and independent ways to get where they are going.
- The Alex Community Food Centre: Developed and guided a FoodFit Alumni walk
- WALK 150: The Calgary Public Library & Centre for Newcomers: In celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017 Lori created WALK 150. Building communities through walking, she donated 1500 Calgary’s Best Walks guidebooks and guided over 1000 people on free multilingual urban walks. Read a bit about Walk 150 here (page 29)
Public Speaking
Lori’s books—and indeed her entire way of living—are a call to Albertans to explore, discover, and connect with the places they inhabit. Through her writing and presentations, Lori teaches us to trust our feet, to rediscover our communities, to find surprise and delight in overlooked corners, and to slow down and truly see the places we live.
- Calgary’s Best Walks and The Joy of Walking: Lori’s visual presentation celebrates the joy of exploring Calgary on foot and becoming a tourist in your own city. Through her writing and presentations, Lori entices us to become explorers, to rediscover our communities, to find surprise and delight in overlooked corners, and to slow down and truly see the places we live.
- Connect, discover and explore Calgary by bike and on foot: Become a tourist in your own city! Lori’s presentation surprises audiences with the diversity of beautiful, quirky, unexpected, and inspiring things to see and do when exploring Calgary on foot and by bike.
- Be creative, Make things up, Don’t follow the rules: Lori will share her experiences creating Fit Frog, writing and publishing guidebooks, and her walking initiatives that build community through walking.
- Guidebook Publishing 101: From writing, layout, and design to map-making; from barcodes to printing and distribution, to media, and marketing! Learn self-publishing tips from the best-selling author of Calgary’s Best Walks and Calgary’s Best Bike Rides.
Publishing & The Business of Writing
Writing is hard work. Publishing is complex. Marketing is a game changer.
Having published her first two books with Fifth House Publishers in 2002 and 2004, and her current titles as a self-published author, Lori has a vast amount of publishing knowledge to share. Whether you are thinking of pitching a publisher, publishing with a hybrid press, or going it alone and self-publishing, Lori can give insights and contacts that will help get the ball rolling. Connect with Lori for an initial chat about your book. If she can offer value to your project with her experience and insights then you can make a plan to meet!
“I was not sure how to begin the process of self publishing my first book. What to do? Who to talk to? Lori Beattie was the logical person to seek advice from, having several highly successful, self-published books to her credit. Lori shared her experience, her contacts, and provided interesting, practical suggestions. Lori knows who to talk to about book distribution, who to do the design and lay out, and who can do copy editing. She was a fountain of ideas for marketing. I listened and followed all of her recommendations. After that, she went from enthusiastic mentor to being a friend.”
– Dale Leckie, author of The Scenic Geology of Alberta: A Roadside Touring and Hiking Guide.
Social Media Collaborations
From giveaways, to takeovers, to sponsored posts, Lori is keen to discuss your idea.