Yes, here in the UK it is much the same - most people want a holiday sitting on a beach and look blankly at you if you talk about adventure travel.
Even so, there are plenty of travel companies offering small group tours. They just tend to be very expensive!
So here's another angle. For your trip, could you research a Canadian Rockies trip, then go and sell the idea of joining this trip to some friends (or some strangers here!). A key aspect is that you have done the planning work, you need someone else to be the driver (or someones plural).
My partner and I did a ten day tour of our own, we had a choice of flying into Edmonton or Calgary, and Edmonton was cheaper, so we went hired a car and went Edmonton - Jasper - Icefields Parkway - Lake Louise - Banff and the same in reverse.