Over the Christmas holidays I travelled to Canada with the goal of skiing as much as possible. Besides the pure joy of skiing, I wanted to race to gauge how my new routine of masters studies and rowing is affecting my skiing abilities. Ultimately I managed to ski for 10 days, and four of those days were spent racing (two Quebec Cup races, and two races on the NorAM circuit). Usually I would aim to ski hundreds of kilometres before starting to race, but I didn’t have that luxury this season.

I was also very keen to visit Thunder Bay, a city in northern Ontario where I had never skied before. Thunder Bay is unique in that there is an active Finnish community still in the town, and one can hear English, French and Finnish all being spoken in the region! The incredible volunteers at Lappe Nordic, and breakfast at the Hoito restaurant were highlights of my visit.

I was once again travelling and waxing my skis by myself. Despite slightly reduced fitness on the long uphills, and a bit of weakness in my triceps muscles, I was overall very pleased with my racing efforts, and more importantly with how quickly my ski technique returned, and how my racing improved from one race weekend to the next.

To conclude my visit I managed to join my mother for a ski at Little Cataraqui Creek Conservation Area – on the trails where I first learned to ski many years ago as a child, it was a pleasure to be back after many years.

An austere landscape east of Thunder Bay.

Racing a 15km classic race at Lappe nordic.

The famous Finnish labour temple and Hoito restaurant.

I still ran into people speaking Finnish in Thunder Bay!

The Terry Fox memorial.

Skiing on the trails where I learned to ski, I hadn’t been back here in 10 years!

Winter beauty.

It’s not often that I get to ski with my mother – thanks for teaching me how to ski!