A project that’s been part of the strategic plan for the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club for a long time is getting closer to becoming a reality.
In April of 2023, the Caledonia Nordic Ski received a grant of $1 million to fund the paved roller ski trail.
“The proposal that we had was for the paving of the biathlon range area, so the shooting ramp and the penalty loop and the stadium areas, as well as we’ve developed a design for trails,” said Club Chair of Competitions Kevin Pettersen.
“The design includes about 2.5 kilometres for competition trails, and then we’ve also developed designs for para sit ski trails as well as recreation trails.”
Pettersen added the total plan includes about five kilometres of trails in total with the expansion phases.
“It’s just like we’ve done with lighting projects or snow-making projects, we build it for expansion in mind,” he said.
“So the first phase gives us a foundation and then we build upon that from subsequent phases as we’re successful with funding.”
Pettersen noted even before shovels are in the ground, they’ve been approached to host events with the new paved trails.
“Just shortly after we had received the funding, we were contacted by Biathlon Canada, who were very keen to see as soon as we have this completed to be able to host a national or continental biathlon competition on roller skis,” he said.
“Also in chatting with the national coaches for cross country at the time, they were indicating how this would be amazing for a training centre.”
Pettersen said they’ve indicated to Nordic Canada the club’s interest in hosting national or international races.
“Even with the events we just held here with the Para Biathlon World Championships and the Para Nordic World Cup Finals, both international federations representatives were here,” he said.
“Both are very involved with all aspects of those federations, so from the winter events, not just para but also able bodied, but also the summer events which are more and more popular in Europe now, so roller skiing and roller biathlon are very common in Europe and probably not-so-common in North America, because there’s not so many sites in North America that have purpose built competition trails, we would be one of the first.”
Pettersen added many of the people involved in Cross Country and Biathlon are already doing roller skiing during the summer months, but they’re doing it on public roads.
“One of the major underlying motivations to do this is certainly to provide a safe area for people to roller ski on,”
“Even though they’re public roads, not everyone thinks of them as public roads, and so our athletes have had close calls, and we really don’t want a tragedy to happen, and having a facility like this enables people to train, to roller ski recreationally.”
Pettersen said once they have the company for construction selected, they’re anticipating construction to start in either late June or early July, with completion expected in October.