Fernie 11 Week Instructor Course - Week 3 Update from Jamie

Week 3 has been an absolute blast and I’ve hardly managed to catch my breath! I know I keep saying it but they honestly weren’t joking when they decided to call this course ‘Nonstop’! This week we had Tom as our instructor and he worked us harder than ever to try and get our skiing up to a ‘Level 1 Instructor’ standard, as our assessment looms ever closer in Week 5. Eek!

On Tuesday my ski group and a few others made the short drive west from Fernie to the town of Kimberley to ski a new area for the day. Bombing down Kimberley’s fast groomers, GS-style, was awesome fun but also reminded us how lucky we have been to have so much fresh powder in Fernie!

Cross-country skiing was invented by Canadians soon after their discovery of home-brewed moonshine in the early 20th century as a powerful hangover cure unlike any other. Ok, I can’t back that up entirely but I would not be surprised at all if it is the case. Whilst it may lack a certain something for the speed demons and adrenaline junkies amongst us, it definitely has a certain charm about it and can shift a deep hangover even better than snow shoe hiking (and that’s no mean feat).

Having been a keen downhill mountain biker in my formative years I was sure that snow biking would come easily to me. How wrong I was. The reality was that it became yet another Canadian sport to be added to the ‘Much Harder Than It Looks’ list. However, having finally got to grips (pun intended) with the basics, we had an epic afternoon racing down the hills outside Fernie, constantly willing our front tyres to stay in contact with the snow beneath us.

Unlike in the UK, ice skating in Canada is more than just the pastime of teenagers on their first dates. They take it pretty seriously here. In fact they even go so far as to skate on frozen lakes, and this is what we did on Sunday. Whilst a gifted few took to it effortlessly the rest of were left resembling Bambi on ice. To finish an amazing week off in style everyone headed back to Fernie to watch the Super Bowl in The Northern. I didn’t understand much of what was going on but was glad to be back on Terra Firma!

Next week is a slightly quieter one (phew!) as it sees us start preparation for our Level 1 assessment the following week. Fingers crossed for all of Team Honey Badger!

See more of my adventure on the Fernie 11 week Instructor course with my week 3 VLOG: