Imagine looking out over the High Level Bridge on a winter’s morning and seeing a rush hour of cross-country skiers on their way to work in downtown office towers. They’re skiing on trails that go from one end of the river valley to the other and connect neighbourhoods through groomed “white of ways.”
It might sound farfetched, but Gina Loewen, founder of SkiLife, a company offering its first year of adult cross-country ski lessons this winter, is just one of the Edmontonians dreaming big about cross-country skiing in the city. A former ski racer who grew up in the Yukon, she’s passionate about helping Edmontonians embrace the activity.
“There are so many Scandinavian cities that really know how to showcase cross-country and use it as mode of transportation,” she says. Cities like Oslo have elaborate ski infrastructures within city limits, she says, and it’s not uncommon to see workers ski part of the way to work and then hop on public transit for the rest. Her company, while starting with lessons and corporate retreats at various central locations, hopes to expand into offering half-day-long tourist trips, including a ski in the river valley that would end up at a restaurant such as Culina. It would be an excursion with equal parts local nature and local cuisine.
“My goal is, three years from now, to be able to stand on the High Level Bridge and see people skiing in the river valley the way they run in the river valley in the summer.”
Head coach for Edmonton Nordic Ski Club, Ulf Kleppe, has seen two perspectives of ski culture – he spent his early childhood in ski-crazed Norway before his family emigrated to slightly-less-ski-crazed Canada. “When I was old enough to move, I was on skis. This is very typical in Norway.” In Canada, less so.
Kleppe feels the greatest appeal of the sport is its accessibility. “There really isn’t a better winter activity,” he says. With over 1,000 members in the club, Kleppe oversees skiers from absolute beginners to elite racers, from children who recently began walking to those on the verge of switching out poles for canes.