INUVIK
The Inuvik Ski Club is making sure it's likely to have future members.

Denita Lennie gets a little personal coaching from Carolyn Hunter at the Inuvik Ski Club's jackrabbit program, March 16. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

The club has been running its jackrabbit program for the last month or so for children around Inuvik to learn to ski. In the process, it's grooming its future.

The program is run by a handful of coaches and volunteers, including Carolyn Hunter, Robin Baron and Jennifer Lam. They were on hand March 16 at the club for another session with the children.

The program this year has been attracting approximately 16 children from about four to 14 years of age, Baron said. She's the club president.

The goal is to instill fundamental skiing skills including stopping, turning and how to get up from a fall.

"It's going really well," Baron said, as she set up an obstacle course on the small hill at the club.

"It's a program to teach kids how to ski," she added. "So that starts from very beginning of learning how to fall, and how to get up. How to classic ski, which is a bit like walking, but with the glide in between.

"We teach how to go up hills with the herring bone, and how to come down hills safely with a snow plow and how to stop."

The program also teaches how to tackle a steep hill by side-stepping with skis. Older children learn more advanced manoeuvres.

"If we get older kids that are good enough, they could get into racing," Baron said. "We can teach them how to race and how to go really fast. We have something for a full range of skiers."

There are five or six coaches who work with the children. That allows the children to be broken up into groups for some more personalized attention.

Barb Lennie, who was watching her granddaughter taking lessons, said she remembered bringing her own children out for lessons like those in the jackrabbit program.

"I took them, and now I'm starting again," she said with a smile. "They have a lot of fun, and there is excellent leadership and coaching being offered to them."

Conditions on the club's trails are excellent at the moment, Baron said.

In fact, the snow was a little on the slick side for the younger "rabbits" that afternoon. Many were having trouble climbing the proverbial "slippery slope on the club hill to the obstacle course."

The snow tends to become more slippery as the weather warms up. At -25 C and lower, the snow becomes sticky. At -14 C, the well-groomed trail was indeed slick.