Becca Denley and her family are known in Yellowknife for riding bicycles as their main mode of transportation year round.
Becca and her husband Adam Denley run Shift NWT – a free summertime bicycle borrowing program in Yellowknife – and have advocated for improvements to active transportation infrastructure in the city.
Becca was recently recognized for her efforts, placing first in the “how we get around” category of Canadian Geographic and OneEarth Living’s Live Net Zero 2025 household challenge, winning $5,000.
“It’s so exciting to hear that my entry won,” she told Cabin Radio in an email.
“It’s not hard to make these choices in our everyday – except when the infrastructure works against us… then it’s a challenge.”
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
Becca said she and her family have found workarounds to those challenges while their bike sharing program has grown into a broader conversation about how to create healthier communities.
Becca said the money she has won from the Live Net Zero challenge will go toward supporting this summer’s Shift program with the aim of helping others “realize how easy it is to choose a happier, more healthy way of travelling in their everyday lives.”
The sustainable living contest challenged households and classrooms across Canada to embrace sustainable habits, reduce their carbon footprints and lower energy costs.
In an entry for the challenge posted on Facebook, Becca wrote that her family chooses to ride bikes as their main form of transportation year round for their health and wellbeing, the environment, to build a safer, more welcoming community, and because it’s simple, affordable and fun.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
“We also do it as an act of solidarity with those who need our community’s infrastructure to better support them,” she added, highlighting snow removal on roads as an issue in Yellowknife during the winter.
Becca told Canadian Geographic she wanted to enter the challenge to share her family’s story and show others that environmentally-friendly transportation is not limited by geography or weather.
“I like to imagine that with every person we talk [to] about our transportation habits, it helps to tip the scales towards more Canadians choosing and supporting active options,” she was quoted as saying.
Becca said other sustainable actions her family takes include buying second-hand and repairing items, purchasing smaller amounts of food at a time to reduce waste, and taking the bus when they are unable to cycle.
Correction: March 17, 2026 – 7:54 MT. This article initially stated Becca Denley won $10,000. In fact, while contestants could win up to $10,000, Becca won $5,000.
