. Thomsen D'Hont: November 2012

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Canmore: I never take any pictures cause I know I'll just be right back.

Funny how that works. Canmore, AB, despite being one of the most beautiful towns in Canada, surrounded by majestic Rocky Mountain peaks, is one of the few places that I have visited that I rarely feel compelled to snap any photos.

Truth is, Canmore is a 3rd home for me (behind Yellowknife and Whistler) and is a place that I return to so often (about 3 times per year) and spend so much time in (1-2 months per year), that pictures are hardly necessary to remind me of the natural beauty of the mountain town.

My arrival in Canmore this time around was to a season I did not expect. Sure, I expected to be skiing on snow on the fabled Frozen Thunder, but little did I know that the entire town would be under it's own kind of "Frozen Thunder" spell. My suitcase's wardrobe consisted of 80% summer clothing, reflecting partly my trip down south to the "warm" USA, and partly my expectation of some afternoons in Canmore spent mountain biking or roller skiing beneath an autumn sun after a morning ritual of slipping and sliding around a hamster death wheel of dirty slush. Rolling into town, the blizzard and biting windchill that greeted me had me mentally tallying the number of wind briefs that I had stashed away in the Fit. I felt a sinking feeling as the number "2" came to mind.

Any stinging of frost nipped appendages over the course of the week was soon assuaged by how mind-bogglingly good the skiing was. I put down a solid 18-hour training week and skied over 300 km over the course of my 10 days in Canmore. Hard wax and solid tracks were the order of the day, every day.

While one of my focuses of the camp, the Frozen Thunder Classic sprint race, didn't go as well as I had hoped due to some borrowed race skis that I could not kick, the quality of other sessions and the jump start on winter in October was very productive and just downright fun.

A huge thank you to former Yellowknifers, Linda and Blair Dunbar, who hosted me while in Canmore.

I am now 4 weeks out of the ever important season opening races (again, in Canmore) and am back in Whistler to make final preparations. It is warm and wet and will likely be at least another week of dryland training (as much as you can call Whistler "dry" at this time of year) before any signs of skiing higher up in the Callaghan Valley.

This is seriously the only picture I took while in Canmore. Graham Nishikawa skiing on Frozen Thunder.

Bio

I was born and raised in the North in the city of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. Yellowknife is a bustling mining town that is in a dark winter deep freeze for much of the year. It is in these dark, cold months that I learned to ski out on meandering snowmobile trails. In Yellowknife there is a sort of ski season trade-off; we have 8 months where skiing is possible, but with the harsh temperatures we have mid-winter, skiing is nearly unbearable for half this time. These conditions have reinforced values such as perseverance, drive, focus etc… and it is these values that have helped me get to where I am today.

When I was a youngster up in the ‘Knife, I was always outdoors, living the childhood that skiing greats like Bjorn Daehlie have attributed their success to. I would hunt, trap, camp, fish, and explore the land around where I lived year-round. I was skiing at a very young age and eventually hopped on the Jackrabbit bandwagon at the age of 7. I flew through the different colour levels and before I knew it I was on the High Performance team. This was a big step – lots of famous skiers were part of this group back then (famous in Yellowknife, anyways). I raced some big international competitions as a Midget through to Junior. I would throw the best I had at Alaskans, Greenlanders, Scandinavians, Russians, and Northern Canadians at the Arctic Winter Games. I was always a pretty small guy so it was a while before I could compete. My results consistently got better and at my final Arctics’ I demonstrated my improved skills and brought home the coveted Golden Ulu for my home contingent of the NWT. It remains to this day one of my greatest accomplishments.

AWGs aren't the only races I did - I would be at all the big Canadian ones too. As a midget (12-13) through to juvenile category (14-15), I would hit up Alberta Cups once or twice a year, along with Western Canadian Championships being an important annual event. As a juvenile I started to make it out to Nationals and by that time I was really hooked on skiing and every year of racing motivated me more and more.

The past few years have been an adventure. Out of High School in summer '07 I became part of the National Team Development Centre based out of Thunder Bay, Ontario. This was my first real time on a high calibre team with other highly motivated individuals working towards the same goal of national and international skiing success. Needless to say, this year was a great stepping stone for me. After my year with the NTDC, I moved out to Whistler, BC to be part of the Callaghan Valley Training Centre (CVTC). Being based out of the 2010 Olympic venue offers an amazing environment for a developing cross country skier and the facilities are second to none.

Intro

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Canmore: I never take any pictures cause I know I'll just be right back.