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

Carolyn Hunter, a coach with the Inuvik Ski Club's jackrabbit program, worked on Naomi Pearce's hill-climbing abilities on March 16. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photos

The club has been running its jackrabbit program during March for children around Inuvik to have a chance 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 young people, 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 for the children on the small hill at the club. "We have about 16 kids out on a regular basis and they range from about four to 14 years of age.

"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."

The club, of course, has a venerable tradition when it comes to racing, notably with the Firth sisters, who competed internationally on a very successful basis.

Baron said "there's a good cross-section of kids.

"It's not a huge number, but it's one we can manage with the coaches that we've got, so it's a really nice number to work with."

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.

Baron said she thought it's easier to learn the classic diagonal stride than the popular skate skiing, but added "I think it can be difficult to learn anything well, and to learn anything well you have to practice."

"Anybody can learn if they practice," she said.

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."

Baron said the club has given some consideration to offering adult lessons as well, but the executive felt they didn't have the resources to devote to it. The club is also uncertain of the demand for such a service.

The jackrabbit program will continue as long as there is snow on the ground, Baron said.

Conditions on the club's trails are excellent at the moment, she added.

In fact, the snow was a little on the slick side for the younger "rabbits" that on March 16. Many were having trouble climbing the proverbial "slippery slope on the club hill to the obstacle course."