New course map for the Flying Viking event

Flying Viking 2023

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.

Click here to register

Community event at the Fernie Golf Course

community race 2023

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:

The Fernie Community Fun R***s on Feb 12

community race 2023

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.

Wes Robinson-Shaw at the races

wes at whistler

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

The Racers at Winter Training Camp

racers in Nelson

The Fernie Nordic Racers recently participated in a training camp coached by Graham Maclean and the Fernie Nordic Racers coaches. Graham Maclean is a professional national coach and technical waxing consultant from Golden. He came to Fernie to help us improve our skills.

On Friday January 29th, we worked on our classic technique for 1 hour and a half. Graham taught us some drills we can use to improve our double poling and diagonal stride technique. We practiced changing from different gears and going up and down a flat hill. We also had fun playing Dodgeball at the end of practice!

racers in Nelson
Fernie Nordic Racers in Nelson

On Saturday morning, we separated into groups by level, the first group went with Graham, Helen, and Rob to do some time trials around the 1.2 km Cedar Loop. Graham filmed our classic technique to give us some feedback after the time trial. Coach Johnny took the second group to ski and do some drills to improve their classic technique. The third group went with Megan Lohmann to practice downhill skills. Then we switched, so everyone could do all the activities. The time trial was adapted depending on skill levels.

After the morning session, we went home to rest, eat, and hydrate. During the afternoon, we went to the cross-country ski trails at Fernie Alpine Resort, and we separated into two groups. The younger athletes went with coach Johnny to work on their one skate on a flat section while the older athletes worked on their offset with Graham. After an hour we switched to practice all the techniques. When we went down, we did a human slalom and went down a big hill which was super fun. Then we went home to rest for Sunday’s big day.

On Sunday morning, we went for a long easy ski and we stopped to do some sprints on the way. They were around 10 seconds sprints with 2,3 or more people. Then we skied up to Boomerang chair and went back to the hut to eat some good soup, chili and bread. We watched our videos from Saturday’s time trial with Graham. He gave us some advice and tips on our techniques and then we played a big game of manhunter during the afternoon.

In conclusion, we thank Graham for all the coaching he did, the tips and advice he gave us and mostly all the fun we had! We are very grateful for this experience, and we hope to get more opportunities like this one.

article by Aurélie Smithson and Louison Dubief

Fernie Racers at the last Kootenay Cup race

kootenay cup nelson

A few photos from the race event in Nelson on February 5 & 6. The Fernie Nordic Racers and several parents joined the fun and earned more points toward the 2022 Teck Kootenay Cup. This was the last event of the season in this series.

Several Fernie racers ended with podium finishes and all had a good time. Well done!

The result of the races in Nelson are on the website of the Nelson Ski Club. The Fernie Nordic Racers finished in 4th place out of eight clubs in the Teck Kootenay Cup series – see the rankings at CrosscountryBC.