Cross Country Skiing in Spectacular Fernie
Looking for a challenge? This is the one, a long one but very casual – unless you don’t want it to be casual, and then feel free to ski like mad! Prizes, ride(s) on the Deer chair, yummy food and drinks. Prizes for best Viking costume! New this year are categories with shorter distances for our Mini-Vikings. More details on our main page. See the course map HERE.
Our 9th Annual Community Fun Races had 60 participants in the event on Sunday morning February 12 at the Fernie Golf Course. Good weather and great ski conditions added to its success. The ages of the skiers ranged from 4 year old in the Bunnyrabbits wave to 78 in the adult category. Many skied in costume. What a sight! The young skiers rushed on either a 200 or 800 metres course. Teen and adult skiers were on a 1.5 km or 8 km course. Two chariots with their young passengers made the 2.7 km loop.
Exciting relay relay races were also part of the event. A classic skier and a skate skier of various ages were paired at random for two 2.7 km laps. This made for a very fun event for the loudly cheering crowd watching.
Next everyone got together at the clubhouse for a chili lunch prepared by Cooks Caterering S&P. Cookie medals to participants. Great prizes from our event sponsors for best costume and other fun categories. We wish to thank these local businesses for providing the prizes for the event: Happy Cow Fernie, Fernie Chiropractic Inc, Mantra Spirit Studio Fernie, Le Bon Pain Fernie, The Quest Fall Line Snow Sports, Fernie Brewing Co., The Vogue Theater, Giv’er Shirt Works, Big Bang Bagels, City of Fernie.
Big thanks also go to Jason and his grooming crew at the Fernie Golf Course for preparing the course during the last weeks.
The icons below link to the results form the races and relays:
Come to ski, come to race, or come to cheer! Compete against your friends and enjoy the great trails. This is an annual community event that is really a fun race open to everyone. Participation is open to all skiers, club members or non-members alike, all ages and abilities.
As in previous years, there are several popular categories to choose from, short ones for the young skiers and longer distances for the older kids and adults and even a ‘team’ category with an adult pulling a chariot with a passenger. The keyword here is FUN, so wear a funny hat or costume if you dare!
The event in 2023 will be held at the Fernie Golf Course. No trail pass required when you enter one of these events. Our goal to make it a fun event for young skiers as well as older ones. Thank you to all volunteers organizing this event.
LOCATION Fernie Golf Club, 201 Fairway Drive
DATE/TIME Sunday, February 12th with a 9:30 am start for bib pickup
Participants will compete within their chosen categories and be rewarded after with a hot chili lunch in the clubhouse. I hear there may be prizes on the line?! Registration/bib pick-up and warm-up will start at 9:30 a.m. and the races will beging promptly at 10:40 a.m., following a quick racer meeting. Cost of registration includes daily trail pass and access to the lunch social to follow.
Details of the times for each participant are shown on the www.webscorer.com website. Click on the following icons to access each page.
Fernie Golf Club, Cooks Catering S & P, Happy Cow Fernie, Fernie Chiropractic Inc,
Mantra Spirit Studio Fernie, Le Bon Pain Fernie, The Quest Fall Line Snow Sports,
Fernie Brewing Co., The Vogue Theater, Giv’er Shirt Works, Big Bang Bagels, City of Fernie
This is our annual community event that is really a fun race open to everyone. Participation is open to all skiers, club members or non-members alike, all ages and abilities. It will be held on Sunday morning February 12 (new date) at the Fernie Golf Course.
As in previous years, there are several popular categories to choose from, short ones for the young skiers and longer distances for the older kids and adults, relay races with random partners and even a ‘team’ category with an adult pulling a chariot with a passenger. The keyword here is FUN, so wear a funny hat or costume if you dare!
The small registration fee includes a hot lunch at the Clubhouse by Cooks Catering. There is more information about the event on this page. The registration page at Zone4.ca is now open.
Two weekends of races make up this 2022-2023 season. Our racers will be in Rossland for the January 14-15 weekend. The second weekend is on February 25-26 in Nelson.
Each finisher, young or adult, accumulates points toward the Cup. Go! Fernie Go!
The Teck Regional Cup series offer affordable, accessible competitive opportunities for developing athletes and are sponsored by Teck throughout B.C. All Regional Cup races offer age-appropriate categories for children 14 years of age and younger, and most offer the full spectrum of categories for skiers of all ages from the CCBC website.
Skiers of the Fernie Nordic Society have participated in the Teck Kootenay Cup series of races every year. Our club has won the Cup in the 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2017-2018 seasons and again in 2018-2019 in part due to the large participation by the young Fernie Nordic Racers of our own race team as well as by many adult skiers from Fernie. Any FNS club member who participates in these races contributes points for our team. So join in! All dates are posted on our calendar.
During Spring Break, Wes Robinson-Shaw attended the National Cross-Country Ski Championships in Whistler BC. This event was from March 20th to 27th, 2022. Wes is one of the Fernie Nordic Racers team and he participated in five races and had three training days. Some of the best athletes in North America were there. The Canadian Olympic team was there, as well as a bunch of the American Olympic team. John Shaw said: ‘’Super high caliber racing on some pretty amazing trails.’’ These trails were designed for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Most of the races were on these trails.
On Sunday March 20th, Wes had a 10 km interval start skate race. He is only 16 years old and usually in the U18 category. The U18s the U20s raced together so there were probably about 320 people on the course, and he had to do two laps of a 5 km course, “It was very crowded, there was lots of passing and the conditions were pretty good.” said John Shaw.
On Monday March 21st, he had a 10 km interval start classic race on the same course, with the U20s and it was very crowded as well. The first 8.5 km went well, but the course was very slushy with very difficult skiing conditions. On the last 1.5 km, someone stepped on his pole, and Wes crashed and broke his pole. He still finished well.
Tuesday March 22nd and Wednesday March 23rd were training days, Wes trained easily for his sprint race the next day.
On Thursday March 24th, it was a classic sprint of 1 km, it was a big climb and a big descent, it was a sunny day therefore the conditions were firm and fast. Wes also had team skate sprints on Thursday. He was the only athlete from Fernie so he couldn’t do the sprints, but he was allowed to participate in the qualifier and get CPL (Canada Points List) points. He came about middle of the pack for his age group. After that Wes and John watched the elite men and women do the sprint race, which was super fun to watch, said John Shaw.
On Saturday March 26th, it was another training day.
On the last day, Sunday March 27th, Wes had a 15km mass start skate race. John Shaw said: ‘’It was the hardest conditions I have seen for racing; it was pouring rain and the slush was boot deep.’’ Wes raced in the afternoon, the course had been skied hundreds and hundreds of times as the other categories had to do four laps of the course, therefore the course was destroyed, which made this race very challenging. Wes said that it was the hardest ski race he’s ever done.
In conclusion, Wes and coach John lived an amazing experience. They said that they learned tons from the event, for waxing and for racing experience. Coach John said that he was excited for the next National Championships in BC, where he can bring more older athletes from the team. It was a great learning experience and Wes did great at all his races.
Article by Louison Dubief and Aurélie Smithson