The Innisfail Ski Hill set a record this year. 2017-18 provided Innisfail with the latest operational ski season the hill has ever had.
As a child some 30 years ago I learned how to ski at the hill. At the age of three or four my parents would religiously take my siblings and me to the ski hill, and until I was strong enough I would be conveyed up the daunting tow rope line between the legs of my parents.
In those days there was always a character at the top of the hill wearing his stockman’s cap. Fitting, Ralph Oxtoby is forever remembered with his name under the sign at the ski hill. After Ralph it was Jim Scott who manned the tow line and then Don Beardsworth -- likely required farmers to maintain the old cabless diesel tractor parked in the shed that chugged the tow line along. Bernice Leavitt or Barb Scott always had hot chocolate ready in the lodge. Countless others came after Ralph, Jim, Barb, Don and Bernice.
I now have children of my own and after some bartering for gear with my older siblings, I was able to take my three-year-old to the ski hill this spring. We had a blast and was he upset to leave at 5 p.m. when the hill closed. He met some new friends: a mother and father with three young kids. The youngest boy, who was three, had just accomplished his first run all on his own! There were a variety of young families, adults and teenagers using the hill.
The Innisfail Ski Hill nourishes dreams: the dreams of young families seeing their kids learn to ski or snowboard; the dreams of teenagers who like me at their age thought that working at Mike Weigele’s Heli Skiing operation in Blue River, B.C. was a good gig; and the dreams of myself now, watching my children learn how to ski.
Few of these dreams would be possible for a small Prairie community without the more than 30 volunteers and board members who dedicate themselves to the operation of the hill. The ski hill and its volunteers once again nourished the dreams of our youth and provided our community with a full season of quality recreation.
We are so very fortunate to have the ski hill here and even more fortunate to have the volunteers to continue its operation. I would like to thank all of those past and present volunteers for their service.
Dr. Andrew Ritson-Bennett is a veterinarian at Innisfail Veterinary Services
