Darren Campbell
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 11/02) - Linda Dunbar was not very keen on being a Yellowknifelife subject.

When approached, the Yellowknife resident said she would be embarrassed by having a two-page feature done on her 33 years living in the NWT.

But there were two subjects she was willing to talk at length about -- her love of cross-country skiing and her long-time involvement in the sport as a coach.

That involvement began when Dunbar and her husband, Blair, moved North in 1969 from Vancouver, B.C. Their first pit-stop was Inuvik, where they both got jobs with the territorial government.

The Dunbars had never cross-country skied before moving to Inuvik. But that would change, in large part, because the Beaufort Delta town was a hotbed for the sport.

Top Northern skiers give lessons to newcomers

The Territorial Experimental Ski Training (T.E.S.T.) program was in full swing in the NWT, and produced a score of excellent skiers.

In the 1970s, Inuvik residents Sharon and Shirley Firth, Ernie Lennie, Roger Allen and Anita Allen, to name a few, were on Canada's national cross-country ski team.

The Dunbars decided to sign up for ski lessons.

"The kids on the national team were giving lessons for $1 a day," says Dunbar. "Sharon and Shirley gave us our first lessons. We were hopeless."

They may have been hopeless at first, but they enjoyed the new sport. As the Dunbars improved their skiing, they became ski volunteers. Blair got involved in officiating and Linda in coaching.

Her first tutor was Norwegian Rolf Kjaernsli, who spent a lot of time in the North certifying cross-country ski instructors.

During her four years in Inuvik, she helped out coaching where she could. Linda loves the outdoors and her passion for the sport was nurtured in Inuvik.

"The ski program was successful and it was an exciting time to be there and be involved ... the sport really grew on us," says Dunbar However, in 1973 the Dunbars moved to Fort Smith. That didn't stop Linda's involvement in the sport.

Dunbar may have been out of the cross-country skiing hotbed but she wasn't about to get out of the sport. Fort Smith school's had ski programs and she helped coach the kids. She also taught adults ski lessons.

Lessons pay off

When the Dunbars moved to Yellowknife in 1977, they stayed involved in the sport. They joined the Yellowknife Ski Club and Linda kept coaching and improving her skills.

By 1986, she had started taking the new National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP). She was one of the first people in the NWT to get certified under the program for cross-country skiing.

And the coaching led to her involvement in major multi-sport events like the Arctic Winter Games and the Canada Winter Games. She assisted head coaches and was the cross-country ski sport chair when Yellowknife hosted the AWGs in 1984, 1990 and 1998.

This year, she will be the head coach of the NWT's ski team that competes in Nuuk, Greenland.

Now a certified NCCP level-two ski coach and working on her level three, Dunbar serves as the high performance coach for the Yellowknife Ski Club. She has been in the game for over 30 years now but Dunbar stays involved because she believes the sport promotes healthy living and does a lot for the athletes involved in it.

"One of the things that keeps me involved is the kids who are competitive in cross-country skiing have a lot of inner strength and the courage to challenge themselves and that's inspiring as a coach," says Dunbar.

Skiing has been a family affair for the Dunbars. Besides Linda and Blair's involvement, their children, Scott and Stephen are also avid skiers.

There are no magic training methods that can make a skier great. It takes a lot of grunt work.

Elite cross-country skiers are cardio-vascular machines. To get to the top requires hundreds of hours of tedious training -- running on roads, skiing on trails and training in weather conditions that are far from ideal.

That is especially true of NWT skiers, who often train in the dark and the cold. Dunbars years working with Northern skiers has taught her to admire their work ethic.

"I think it takes a very strong individual to be successful in this sport. I think it takes a lot of determination and fortitude," says Dunbar. "You have to have a love and a passion for the sport. Why else would you come out in -30 C in the dark?"

Accolades should go to athletes

During her coaching career, Dunbar has coached every age group and level of skier in the NWT. She's coached the little ones, the beginners in the Jackrabbits ski program, high performance skiers, adults and teenagers.

She has also coached some of our most successful skiers. Athletes like Lindsey Bolivar, a two-time medallist at the Canadian Biathlon Championships. Mike Argue, a national calibre skier, is another one of her former pupils.

And at the 2002 Winter Olympics that just wrapped up in Salt Lake City, Utah, one of the kids Dunbar taught to ski, Robin Clegg, competed for Canada at the Games in biathlon.

It should be the goal of every coach to ensure the kids entrusted in their care improve. Dunbar certainly played a part in getting Bolivar, Argue and Clegg where they are today but she isn't about to brag about it.

It's not always that way. Take the famous gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi, who coached Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton to Olympic gold in his career. In no small part due to his own self-promotion, Karolyi became almost as famous as his athletes did.

Talking to Dunbar, you get the feeling she doesn't approve of that style. In fact, she is a firm believer that coaches should coach and athletes perform. If they succeed, Dunbar feels all the accolades should go to the athlete.

"It is gratifying but you have to be happy for the kid," says Dunbar. "We may have played a role but I don't think we can take credit for their success. We can just be proud of them."

How long Dunbar will continue to play a role in developing Yellowknife skiers remains to be seen. She said she is nearing the end of her coaching career. However, her enthusiasm for working with young skiers who have the drive to get better is still apparent. Perhaps she will never completely get out of the coaching game.

"I've got all the time in the world for kids who put in the time and effort to improve," says Dunbar.

"It's inspiring to see them improve. They have a lot of self-discipline. Self-discipline will get them through life and they learn it at a very young age through sport."