With winter approaching, so are winter sports, especially skiing! I spoke to Tom Landine about the Esterhazy Cross Country Ski Club and their newly groomed trails on the Esterhazy Golf Course.
In the past, maybe 15-20 years ago, there were trails on the golf course, but they were hard to maintain because of wind. Because of this, the Ski Club started spending more time developing trails near the landfill area. Because of the difficult years for the golf course due to floods, they stopped the habit of grooming the trails. They were excited to start again because you do not need much snow to groom a trail at the golf course, while the landfill needed more. The trails all depend on the snow we get this year. In the last couple years that they groomed the golf course, it was unfortunately abandoned after Christmas. The regional parks have been good about it, and they make sure they avoid the greens while grooming. The skating oval last year brought hope for skiing in the future.
The trails start on holes nine and one and extend to the campground area and near the playground. They go through the golf cart shacks, and then to holes number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and then finish at 9. However, there are some holes that barely get touched, like number five.
There are skate ski and classic cross country ski trails. The skate ski trails are broad, wide, uniformly packed (depending on the space they have) and are six to eight feet wide. A classic track requires more snow, and it is easier to make a skate track than a classic track.
They offer lender equipment including a wide selection of boots, a pretty good selection of skis, and an okay selection of poles. Please make sure you take care of borrowed equipment! They want to encourage trying it out with the lender equipment before people buy their own equipment. The purpose is to introduce newbies to the sport and allow them to use good equipment on their first try. To arrange borrowing equipment, contact Tom Landine on the Esterhazy Cross Country Ski Club Facebook page.
They have a donation box for the trails. However, they are more interested in memberships as they help with getting grants. They gratefully received a donation from the Esterhazy Lions Club, who donated $5000 from the Chase the Ace funds for a new snowmobile for trail grooming. They also got a grant and sold their old machine to the Saskatoon Wildlife Biathlon Club which allowed them to purchase a new one. The delivery is COVID-19 dependent, and they are expecting delivery in December.
There is a young woman from the community who is taking a coaching course which will allow her to coach a Jackrabbit program for young kids, around 5-12 years old. The program will start running when there is enough snow. The Jackrabbit program promotes skiing as a lifelong activity for all ages to love. They also have a biathlon club which has grown and has eight people involved, four of them are over 35 years old and the other four are younger. They are busy practicing shooting and have been able to meet weekly since September. Their first race is in Lumsden, Saskatchewan on December 11th and 12th.
They have opportunities for volunteerism through the executive of the club. They had a workday this fall and 30 people showed up to help. They re-routed a trail to improve it, and they did a lot of work in two hours! If people are interested in helping with the Jackrabbit program, please do! They are in the business of promoting skiing and want to encourage as many people as possible to cross country ski in Saskatchewan, it helps make cold winter days shorter and more enjoyable!
By: Mallory Johnson