Pre-season update, plus a bike race on Sept 16!

Hey ski friends! The pace is starting to pick up again for everything that will make the upcoming cross country ski season successful! Some clubs in the province have started their membership drive already. But not us, so relax; the membership director (Pat) says the online and paper registration forms will be live for mid-October. (Watch Facebook posts, emails, and website updates for membership information.) Meanwhile, we’ve been busy during the summer fixing things and mowing trails and painting outhouses. Dean and Doug have put in many many hours out at Onion Lake fixing machines and then working those machines, and Dean’s getting a bit whiny about the lack of cookies. Just saying! This is a difficult subject to bring up. I know we are all busy, over-committed, over-extended, on other Boards, looking after kids or parents or neighbors, etc., etc. Our ski club depends on volunteers 100%, and our programs and events will suffer greatly if we can’t get people from the membership to help out. There will be requests for volunteers over the course of the ski season for specific events or programs. Evaluate within yourselves how much the ski club, and access to the trails, mean to you, and what you can do to help the executive and key volunteers make an exciting and eventful season. Looking ahead to this winter, there will be no Women’s Ski Fest or Tour de Soup unless we can pull more volunteers into these events. The rental shed will have limited hours. Dean needs a few more groomers, to keep the trails open all season. We will need a school group coordinator and school group coaches or we can’t welcome the kids from the various schools onto the trails. All of these programs and events are the pulse of the club, and we’re really suffering from lack of people enthusiastically helping it all happen. The volunteers who go out there and give of their time and talents are happy, hard-working, and lots of fun to be around—who wouldn’t want to join us?

Antler Bike Challenge on Sept 16

We encourage the use of the trails for biking, hiking, and horseback riding in the off-season months. One of our ski club members, Sam, has planned a bike challenge for the Clearwater Trail. See the poster for more details. Come out to take part in the race, or to cheer the bikers on, grab a coffee and a cookie, and meet some new friends.

We also need some volunteers to help out on the trails as controllers, and we need dozens and dozens of cookies! Contact Sam (nwbc.challenge@gmail.com) if you can help out in the controller department and contact Cathy if baking is more your style of contributing to the event.

Work Party

We will probably have a work party this fall. This usually means splitting and stacking lots of firewood, as well as other tasks in and around the stadium area. We will also need to have a large contingent of people to wax and scrape skis for the rental shed. We’ll let you know when this happens. Here are some other opportunities for maintenance of the club facilities and getting ready for the season, which can be done any time:

1. The main lodge and the Moose Hut will need a good clean before the snow flies.

2. You hikers who use the trails for outdoor adventures in the summer and fall, Doug and Dean are always whining about the big rocks that are on the trails. The rocks do damage to the summertime mower and to the wintertime grooming machines, if they are jutting out too far. Please purposefully walk your favorite trail, and toss those rocks deep into the bush. (Bonus: upper body strength training!)

3. Dean and his crew have been replacing the wooden sign posts on the trail system with metal poles this fall. They need to be painted. Any painting lovers out there? It would require the use of a vehicle that can go down the Beaver and wherever else the sign posts are located. Let us know if you can help.

Kal Tire has been sponsoring kids’ skill development programs across the province for many years. We appreciate their commitment to bringing more kids onto trails and into the sport of cross country skiing. The attached coupon is for cross country ski club members only, so if you are looking to get new tires for this winter’s driving out to Onion Lake, this is a great opportunity to save a bit of money and support the company that supports our kids’ programs. The coupon is valid for the Terrace Kal Tire.

Postlude:

This is just “an aside” but is still important. Someone has stolen the toilet paper, paper towels, cans of coffee, cling wrap, aluminum foil, and the boxes of garbage bags that were stored in the kitchen in the lodge. We keep the lodge open all year round, and are very trusting of the patrons that use the lodge facility over the off season months. But stealing toilet paper? garbage bags? yeesh. That’s pretty low. If you’ve read this far into this newsletter, you deserve an extra cookie at our work party or other event this season! Come out and claim your prize.

See you on the trails!

news plus St. Paddy's Day Cookie and Poker Ski

Hi everyone, We’ve certainly had some great skiing in the last few weeks! Sorry this didn’t happen in January, but it’s sure happening now, so please get out there and enjoy the trails, if you haven’t been out there lately. We have over a meter of packed snow almost everywhere; this is good news for spring skiing. The life of a skier in the spring could be this: garden in the morning, ski in the afternoon, and go hiking or kayaking in the evening as the days are getting longer! Who can’t love this? We are still selling half-season memberships at a very good price, if you aren’t a member but still want to get on board to get lots of skiing in over the next month or so. The Jack Rabbits program finished on Saturday, with end-of-lessons activities for all the age groups. The coaches did an amazing job this season, working with the sometimes challenging weather (and sometimes the challenging puddles) to keep the kids on skis, learning, and having fun. The rental shed hours are coming to an end. This weekend the shed will be open Saturday and Sunday, 1-4 p.m. After Sunday, March 19, the rental shed will be closed. We are short of volunteers in this important club outreach, so think about volunteering for next season when you sign up to ski. We’ve had an assortment of school groups (including the Spirit North kids), kids’ groups, and adult groups enjoying the trails this season. Thank you to the groomers and rental shed volunteers and the instructors and coaches who have helped to get these groups on skis! This is a crucial piece of introducing people to the sport and our trails, and a volunteer opportunity if you have time (next season) on weekdays.

St. Paddy’s Day Cookie and Poker Ski on Sunday, March 19

Looking for a social event and a ski event and a cookie event all in the same day? Put on your greenest ski clothes, and join us for a St. Patrick’s Day tour of the Beaver and Clearwater trails, eat some cookies at various stations, and accumulate playing cards to compete for the best poker hand. One of the cookie stations will be at the new shelter that overlooks Onion Lake—come check it out! Registration starts at 1:00 p.m. $5 per person (proceeds going to Moose Hut maintenance project and troll-making for the Troll Trail) (people without season’s passes will have to pay regular day use fees as well) Prizes: —best/most green costume (booklet of 10 ski pass tickets) and child prizes for best dressed too! —best poker hand (free membership next season), prizes for 2nd and 3rd place as well —other random draws for all in attendance

Can you help us run this event? We need volunteers (10 people at the 5 cookie stations, 2-3 people in the kitchen at the lodge, 2 people at the registration table, and 2 poker hand adjudicators). Contact Cathy if you can volunteer on Sunday. We also need lots of cookies, about 1000 of them! Contact Pat if you can bake some cookies, OR drop off at Kim’s (4116 Benner St., Terrace) or Pat’s (37 Duncan St., Kitimat)

January 28, 2023: annual Snow Valley Open!

Classic technique; mass starts by age category. Please read race notice attached. All registrations and volunteer sign up: email Travis This is a fun and laid-back event; please consider joining us to challenge yourself on the 7.5 km course (all the inside trails!) or the less technical recreational course (go fast or go slow, it’s up to you!). All participants get a chocolate bar at the finish line, and a free bowl of soup! (All Jack Rabbits kids are pre-registered.)

Message from Travis, Chief of Race:

Hi folks, looking to recruit volunteers for race day on Saturday Jan 28th for this year’s Snow Valley Open. Some jobs are in the stadium, some are out on the course, some start before the race some during and some after. Some jobs even happen the day before in the set up of the race course and the stadium start and finish zones. So if you feel you can help out please let me know as soon as you can and I can place you somewhere that I hope you will enjoy. Pre race jobs: Course set up and Stadium set up Usually happen on the day before race day (Friday the 27th) or the morning before the race. Race jobs: Registration and bib hand out. 9:30 to 10:30 at the lodge to hand out bibs and organize racer info. Starter/ finish controller for Atoms race on the troll trail. 10:15 till 11 in the stadium Start line for all other racers. 10:15 till about 11:30 On course controllers 10:30 till race finish (usually 12:30 at the latest) Finish line controller 10:30 till race finish. Plunging finish times or writing down bib numbers, collecting bibs handing out choco bars, running race sheets etc. Clean up after race 12:30 or so till complete. So anyhow there are many jobs that need doing and more smaller jobs than just those listed are available. If you can help in any way, email me and I will set you up with a position so we can make this a fun event for all. Thank you very much Travis Carter Chief of Race

Snowflake Cafe will be serving out soup and buns and goodies in an outdoor concession. $3 for soup and a bun, $1-ish for goodies. Of course, we need people to help with the food preparation (soup and sweets), serving, and washing dishes. Email Lisa if you can make a pot of soup or a batch of ccokies, or help out on race day.

McBike & Sport from Smithers will be on site as well, with an assortment of Nordic gear, equipment, clothing, wax, etc., and lots of good advice about gear, for every level of skier! Click here for poster if you don’t see it below.