using ember trying to set value in controller from route yields error

I have a controller for this route that I have created and everything else in the controller seems to work great. I am trying to pass the meta value to a variable in the controller from the route and I get a console error:

Error: Property set failed: object in path "controller" could not be found or was destroyed.

this is the relevant snippet in my route:

 model(params){                                                                                                                                                                                                          
   let someVariable = this.store.query('somePath', params);                                                                                                                                       
   someVariable.then((results) => {                                                                                                                                                                                     
       this.set('controller.totalPages', results.get('meta.page_count'))                                                                                                                                                 
   });                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
   return someVariable;                                                                                                                                                                                                 
 }

in the console error the line with the issue is this one

this.set('controller.totalPages', results.get('meta.page_count'));

The other interesting snippet is when I sort a row on my data table and make the model request again my 'totalPages' variable finally shows up as expected(with the meta value), its on the initial page load that I dont see it.