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Ski Mushing & Tele Capers |
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CanoeSki has a great line-up of cross-country ski programs and tours to help you celebrate the all-too-short Saskatchewan winter. Learn to ski, intermediate and skate skiing, and telemark clinics are on the slate for January. After much application to the learning task, and faithful practise (we trust!), it's time to kick up our free heels in February, as the weather warms up. Imagine being whisked down a boreal forest trail on your skis with a sled dog in the lead! Or, imagine yourself floating down a mountain slope in knee-deep powder carving graceful telemark turns till your thighs burn! These are some of the fun things you can look forward to as the CanoeSki winter program unfolds. |
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Before all that gets going... we're planning to bring in the New Year with a repeat of a ski party started in the year 2000. This celebration was the first tour in a new series, Back to the Future-New Millenium Traditional Pursuits. Seven energetic skiers journeyed into the Porcupine Forest northeast of Saskatoon and heralded the turning of the millenium in a rustic hideaway provided by Dave Weiman of Sawyer Lake Adventures. We skied and celebrated and spent New Year's Eve getting acquainted with forest life many moons ago when horse power was in vogue and human muscles did far more than manipulate a mouse. |
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Dave took us by into his lumber camp and gave us a hands-on demo of how his horses work in an eco-friendly, sustainable logging operation. He let us use an antique 2-person cross-cut saw to bring down some big trees the old-fashioned way. We have the pleasure of bunking into Dave's ecolodge that he built with timber from his woodlot. It's a really classy place, but with rustic charm. Dave has recently added sled dogs to the many attractions at Sawyer Lake. Now you can look forward to mushing with dogs as well as skijoring behind a horse in between cross-country ski treks! For stories and photos from
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To get the real scoop on this skiing adventure take a look at Pat's Ski Mushing Saga. This is a glowing first-person account with lots more detail on what happened. On the Trail with Cliff is another ski mushing testimonial with some poignant thoughts on the impacts of industrial logging on traditional lifestyles. |
Another exciting new ski tour program involving sled dogs was started in the millenium year. Two successful tours run in partnership with Sundogs Sled Excursions formed the other half of the Back to the Future series. It proved to be a winning theme, so we're offering Boreal Forest Ski Mushing Tours again this season in February. In a nutshell, this tour is the perfect weekend get-a-way to a winter paradise! Friday evening it's relaxing and socializing with like-spirited folks in the comfort of a cozy lakeside hide-a-way. Saturday morning's technique tuning session is preparation for the day's challenges on the Anglin Lake ski trails. Spellbinding bedtime stories of dog sledding adventures on the northern frontier closes the day. Sunday ushers in a rendezvous with Sundogs Sled Excursions and a trip to their prospector-style camp deep in the boreal forest. We get acquainted with the wild and wooly world of dog sledding, learn how to skijor with a sled dog and enjoy a hot lunch at the scenic wilderness camp. Howling huskies, speeding sleds, swooshing skis - all the ingredients of a memorable winter adventure! |
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For the last several years, |
Famous for Lots of Powder
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The Group shares costs of transportation, accommodation and meals, which keeps the cost of a ski week very reasonable. In past years we've modified the itinerary with stops at Castle Mountain, Fernie, Kimberley, Fairmont and Panorama. |
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BACK TO THE New Millenium Traditional Pursuits  |
New Year's Eve Date: |
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Date: Feb. 12 (eve), 13-14, 2010 |
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"Skiing ranks first in the |
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Learn-to-Ski |
Dates 2010:
Cost: $90 per 4-session regular course $75 - new 3-session afternoon course What to Bring: Evening/Day Sessions: Saturday Session: Sunday Session: |
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Cross-Country & |
Novice Will appeal to beginners or those who haven't had any formal instruction. Concentrating on basic technique will give you a solid foundation to build on. Date: Feb. 6, 10:00 am - 4:00pm Intermediate Will review the basics and develop advanced skills in both classic and skating techniques. The emphasis will be on developing efficient techniques. Date: Jan. 23, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm Telemark Will introduce the telemark turn for skiers interested in alpine backcountry touring or in skiing groomed slopes at mountain resorts. Battleford's Table Mountain Ski Resort is the venue for this course. Fee does not include lift ticket. Car pooling to the resort will be arranged. Date: Jan. 24, 8:00 am - 6:00 pm Private Lessons/Tours Contact Cliff Speer
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There was smoke coming from the chimney; it was a real home of real people that had been so recently ransacked by our economy. And we stood on a new road, between cabin and clear-cut, ecotourists out for a ski in nature, passing through a moonscape and pulled by a sled dog whose life and heritage now were preserved, not by the forest-dwelling Cree, their partners of the past, but by a fringe of sentimental enthusiasts and ecotourists like ourselves. 27 February, 2000 |
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We had stopped together as a group on the logging road in order to take a picture of one of us being pulled along on skis by one of the sled dogs; the dog team itself had raced on ahead, carrying our backpacks to the camp we were heading for. I was suddenly struck by the social and cultural and ecological significance of the scene we were now a part of. Beside us, about 50 metres off the road, was a small log cabin of the style typical of the post-contact Woodland Cree and nestled on the shore of a small lake. The picturesque and pleasant scene of the cabin was greatly disfigured, however, because the forest had been clear-cut almost to the lakeshore. The woodland home of these Cree trappers had been cut down right to their very door and was gone; only the cabin remained to remind us of what had been. |
by Patricia Saunders Consider for one moment all that you have done this week... don't forget the mini-van shuttling, the extra-curricular work, waiting in traffic lines, selflessly deciding to be satisfied with a 7-11 coffee and shelf lived cellophane-wrapped butter tart in place of a decent coffee break, stopping for some quick groceries at 8:00 pm in consideration of the needs of your family, answering telephones, returning voice mail, being put on hold, cutting into sleep time to complete a report, keeping the house clean, rushing to be on time for the... okay, okay. |
I think you agree: you really need to get away from this and a single weekend will do the trick... enough to let you relax, eat and wine well, breathe fresh air, be chauffeured, sleep in, enjoy good company, x-c ski a "little", recline to the vista of a tree lined lake... And this is precisely how we lived on the last week of January 2000. As our good friend and certified licensed accredited ski master extraordinaire, Cliff Speer, chauffeured us through the aurora borealis bedecked evening in the direction of Emma Lake, my recurring thought was, "It's Friday, and I am OUT of the city, and someone else is doing the driving!" These factors alone constitute a good dream, but wait. There's more. For we, all of us (a journaliste de Quebec, a Ph.D. student from the Czech Republic, a couple of ag biotechnologists from England, a researcher/photographer from Croatia, a school teacher from Saskatoon, and Cliff), are heading into Saskatchewan's boreal forest for a weekend in a funky two storey cedar cabin, with enough space to sleep ten or twelve people, and are awakened in the morning by the friendly gurgling of a coffee maker. Someone else has hot coffee ready for me? This is already worth the admission. Need to Get Away. |
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We wax our x-c skis, pack a lunch -- the ingredients of which Cliff has set out for us to choose from, load up, and are chauffeured out to the Anglin Lake area for some warm-up/refresher/ski improvement lessons. Cliff's experience in instructing goes way back and his eye is a precision instrument; each member of our little group receives personalized instruction and practice time. In my skiing he detects a habit that has annoyed me for at least two years and I can't blinkin' get rid of it: beavertailing - it's an irritating slap of ski on snow caused by a premature weight shift. He spots it, offers a solution, then sends me up the trail to practise while I am secretly asking, "How in the name of goodness am I to change this in time for our 13 km run today?" As already stated, this guy knows how to instruct: I try, I fall, I regain, I trip, I ache, I huff and I puff, I remember his advice and try to enact it, and lo and behold, may the heavens be praised... for within one hour I have completely - yes entirely - changed the leg work of my technique. Smoother, quieter, less work. Others in our group too, comment on their satisfaction with improvements made in this brief time period.
Photo credit: Branimir Gjetvaj /Lida Cermakova
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Returning to our "cabin" just in time to photograph from the rooftop balcony a remarkable pink and orange sunset across the breadth of Emma Lake and beyond, we stretch out, get a lovely massage routine going, sip on good wine, are served gourmet courses, play a few card games, and enjoy scintillating conversation. Au matin, following a bacon and eggs and multigrain toast with-all-the-trimmings breakfast, we and our skis head out to the north to meet Bradley Muir of Sundogs Excursions and his friendly energetic Alaskan huskies. Brad takes carefully planned time to talk about animal care and sledding safety, he teaches us how to harness and command the huskies, he calms his team whose members are hyped and delighted that they will soon be called to PULL, and he bids us farewell as he sleds ahead 6 km to prepare hot lunch for us at his aptly chosen tent site on Beaver Dam Lake. And... he leaves behind for us a pretty little canine called Puccoon who will be our skijor leader. By the end of the day we will, all of us, have a deep love and respect for this little creature who clearly just wants to get going. Skijoring is an old Norwegian tradition of winter transit in which a skier is simply harnessed behind a pulling horse. Sled dogs are equally eager and able for this kind of work, and what a pleasant break it was to have that little harness passed over to me. Puccoon is smart and strong; she's eager and sensitive, every so often looking behind to make eye contact with me. She pulls for a long stretch, and I only have to do some easy double poling; she loves the down hills and she digs in on the up hills. I pass her on to my friend Jean-Sebastien and we meet at Brad's campsite on the sunshiny lakeshore where he waters and rests his dogs, and his canvas prospector's tent provides woodstove warmth and another nutritious-delicious menu for we bedraggled who really needed to get away this weekend. Several times during the day a voice in my head repeats, "This is a bit of heaven." Over lunch Brad continues to educate us on the culture of dog sledding and shares his sensitivity for the surrounding ecosystems, and one easily notes that he very much enjoys and values all elements of this lifestyle. Our 8-km return trip is, as promised, a veritable utopia. Skiing (and skijoring) on snow like velvet through tranquil undulating trails, we are 3 km from the trail end when Brad and his panting puppies do a series of double-backs in order to provide each of us with a sled ride, a tow-ride, and if we're brave enough - a chance to do some "mushing". |
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