By Dan Plouffe
The nation’s capital hosted a pile of high-profile cross-country ski events in the past month. ShovelFest 2016 wasn’t one of those.
But the gathering of a group of 50+ volunteers to prepare a relatively barren Nakkertok Nordic Ski Club course in time for the early-February Eastern Canadian Cross-Country Ski Championships is the type of behind-the-scenes effort that a passionate local nordic community routinely contributes to bring the big shows to life.
“We had very little snow through the early part of the season, and quite a bit of warm weather, which didn’t help,” recounts Dirk Van Wijk, the owner of the Nakkertok land in Cantley along with wife Claudia. “But there’s such a spirit with all these people. The minute you say we need help at Nakkertok shovelling snow, you get 50 people with their shovels.
“It’s incredible what that many people with shovels can put onto a race course. We covered a race course in a half a day with 20 cm of snow. That made all the difference this year.”
February’s wacky weather offered the opposite challenge at the first stage of the Ski Tour Canada FIS World Cup races. The snow from the Winterlude Snowflake Kingdom was already “tricky to deal with” since it comes in big heaps and includes artificial snow, and that was before the region got a massive dump followed by a lot of rain to make it even harder to push around, but “120 hours later, we’ve got a ski course from a sliding centre” at a “beautiful location” looking over the Ottawa River towards the Parliament Buildings, notes Van Wijk, the course preparation chief.
“When this concept first got proposed, a lot of people thought, ‘Oh my God, why are we doing this? It’s going to be so much work and effort,’” recalls Van Wijk, who also helped prepare the course on Montreal’s Mont Royal before the Tour went to Quebec City and Canmore, Alta. “But to have the best in the world come ski eight races in Canada, like it’s never going to happen in our lifetime again. It’s such a cool thing.”
Nakkertok-brewed siblings Katherine and Patrick Stewart-Jones of Chelsea qualified to compete alongside the world’s top athletes at the World Cup, finishing 68th and 84th respectively in the women’s and men’s sprint free events.
A slew of international skiers also visited the region for the Feb. 26-28 Gatineau Loppet, federal politicians joined athletes and young local students for a Feb. 24 ski on the Parliament Hill lawn, while Nakkertok also hosted the Feb. 19-21 Ontario University Athletics Championships.
“Nakkertok’s been a busy place this winter,” underlines Van Wijk, a Glebe resident whose family also operates Madawaska Kanu Centre in the summer, also highlighting the fact that local skiers produced a pile of exceptional results at the events. “Nakkertok, and the whole area, has a lot of very strong skiers.”
Ravens end rivals’ dynasty
At the OUAs, the Carleton Ravens women’s nordic ski team ended an 11-year Lakehead reign when they won the Ontario team title at home, while the Ravens men finished 2nd behind Lakehead. Carleton’s Nicholas Clifford was named coach of the year.
The Ravens excelled with a deep team of tightly-packed finishers through the three days of racing, claiming the most OUA all-star selections – and nearly half of all the 20 available positions – with Megan Evans, Emilie Stewart-Jones, Emily Jones, Alexandra Slobodian, Alyssa Stowe, Carrington Pomeroy, Patrick van Walraven, Chris Weller, and Avery Vreugdenhil-Beauclerc.
Easterns excellence
More than 700 skiers compete at the Feb. 5-7 Eastern Canadian Championships, which couldn’t have come together without the active families that step forward to volunteer and drive the event, Van Wijk emphasizes.
“Easterns has now become a community-run event,” he notes, explaining that all the local clubs work together as a group to act as co-hosts. “It’s a tight community of very, very like-minded people.”
It’s a spirit amongst that tends to run across the Canadian cross-country scene.
“I really like seeing everyone from across the country who comes to these races because I’ve made friends with them,” indicates Nakkertok’s Ali Pouw, who won women’s junior A 10 km free bronze and junior 10 km classic mass start silver medals at Easterns.
“I wanted to finish the weekend off with a bang,” adds the University of British Columbia-bound Glebe Collegiate Institute student who received a running scholarship. “We ski the 5k course multiple times, so I know it like the back of my hand.”
With boys’ juvenile 2000-born 7.5 km free gold and juvenile 10 km mass start bronze, Andrew Hayman another big winner amongst a large contingent of Nakkertok medallists.
“Nakkertok is a great team of people, staff, wax technicians to prepare the skis – it’s really good,” signals the Grade 10 West Carleton Secondary School student whose Nakkertok teammate Ben Milley finished right on his heels in the 10 km race. “I love training with people who definitely push you. Having a lot of really strong teammates is definitely a big plus for the club.”
Also winning medals for Nakkertok at Easterns were Britt Halvorsen (girls’ midget 2003 5 km free bronze), Tove Halvorsen (girls’ junior B 1999 3 km free bronze), Pierre Grall-Johnson (boys’ junior B 1999 3 km free bronze), Zoë Williams (girls’ junior A 1.4 km free bronze), Benjamin Croteau (boys’ midget 2002 3 km free gold), Mallory Williams (girls’ midget 2003 3 km free gold), and Katherine Stewart-Jones (women’s 15 km mass start bronze), while Lisgar Collegiate Institute student Alia Sanger of Chelsea Nordic won gold medals in the girls’ junior B 1999 5 km free and 3 km free.