This year marks the eighth year Fernie has hosted the TransRockies!  Fernie was a start host community for the first five years and now the third as a the Epic Finish.  Fernie is the only community to have hosted all of the TransRockies events.  This is not by chance as Fernie offers the best single-track mountain biking in the Canadian Rockies, the amenities of a urban ski town, and boasts an extremely supportive business community. 

Each year kicks off with an annual pre-party. This is the opportunity to introduce the Fernie participants, changes to the local events and to thank the sponsors.  The sponsors offer event stability as it has been the same group for eight years.
This year has exceptional participation from a host of local riders.  Repeat TransRockies riders include Pat Gilmar (06), George King (07), Arthur Sombrowski (06) and Brendan Morgan (06).  Fernie’s youngest team ever is riding, Andrew and Garret are just 20.  New this year is the TR3, a three day solo introductory event, and local gals Lisa Grabbas and Deb Collins are riding.  The full teams are as follows:

Team 1 – Pat Gilmar &  Franck Gimard

Team 2 – George King & Jerome Salvadore

Team 3 – Garret Souchuck & Andrew Williams

Team 4 – Arthur Sombrowski & Brendan Morgan

Above is Garret Souchuck wearing this years Team Blackstone Fernie outfit.

An excellent venue always helps create a superior event and this year was special.  We were invited to 901 Fernie Penthouse Suite Twenty One, offering a unique  270 degree view of the valley.  These 901 Fernie suites are the nicest real estate in the Rocky Mountains.

We look forward to seeing you at the Blackstone Fernie TransRockies Epic Finish on Saturday August 15th!  For more information on events visit fernie.com/transrockies

Blackstone is an environmentally sensitive master plan mountain community that is currently under construction. It will feature an 18-hole championship golf course designed by David McLay Kidd. Other official sponsors of the Blackstone Fernie TransRockies include Tinhorn Creek Winery, Fernie Real Estate, Fernie Brewing Co., 901 Fernie, The Guides Hut, Overwaitea, The Free Press, Fernie Fix, Fernie Getaways, Lizard Creek Lodge, Stanford Hotels & Resorts, Best Western Fernie Mountain Lodge, Pinnacle Ridge Resort, Super * and Red Tree Lodge.

The Olympic season begins in earnest for members of Canada’s alpine ski teams, with the men’s team scheduled to begin on-snow training later this week.

Canada’s men’s team is heading to Coronet Peak, near Queenstown, New Zealand for the opening of a high intensity training camp on July 25.

Manuel Osborne-Paradis (Vancouver, BC), who won the first World Cup downhill race of his career in Kvitfjell, NOR last season, will be one of the 16 ski racers at the camp.

“Obviously everyone knows what’s at stake this year with the Olympics in Whistler. And this is the beginning of the process,” said the 24-year-old Osborne-Paradis, a 2006 Olympian who has six career World Cup podium results. “I have actually never been to New Zealand and so I am looking forward to getting there and getting back on the snow.”

Men’s team head coach Paul Kristofic said both the speed team (downhill and super G) and the technical ski racers (giant slalom and slalom) will be training in New Zealand.

“During this training camp we will do a lot of volume and focus on technical adjustments,” said Kristofic. “We do quite a lot of free skiing and drills at the beginning. This gives the racer a chance to adapt their bodies to firing the skiing muscles and getting the feeling back in their skiing after a long break off snow.”

“We definitely ease the athletes into the skiing program to avoid any injury as the body is being stressed in a different way than the gym. Once the racers have adapted, we turn up the volume and get the bulk of the work done,” he added.

Kristofic said Coronet Peak offered an excellent training area, with great snowmaking and a relatively low altitude, as the skiers prepare for the World Cup season and the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

“We get excellent quality snow. The high volume of runs at a relatively low altitude allows for physical recovery to be easily managed. There are also a variety of runs used that vary in difficulty,” Kristofic said.

As for the ladies team, they will have their first on-snow camp of the season in New Zealand next month. Canada will also have several members of the ladies team taking part in the New Zealand Winter Games, which are scheduled from August 24 to 30.

The World Cup alpine ski racing season is scheduled to begin in late October with giant slalom races in Sölden, AUT. The men’s team opens the World Cup speed season with a super-G and downhill at the Bombardier Lake Louise Winterstart in Lake Louise, AB Nov. 28 and Nov. 29.

The alpine events of the Olympic Winter Games take place in Whistler, BC beginning with the men’s downhill on February 13.

A couple of weeks ago, Chris Davenport, Lorraine Huber  and  Karene got to go on this amazing trip to the Lyngen Alps and film with Warren Miller.  We met up in Tromsø city, located 350 kilometers inside the Artic Circle, so we were definitely pretty far north. We got to eat some delicious fish soup and check out town for one day before heading out to Lyngen Lodge the next day, about 3hrs away.

Lyngen Lodge was built about a year ago, located on the spectacular Lyngen Fjord of Northern Norway and is surrounded by magnificent mountains offering unlimited adventure possibilities. Their concept is to combine luxurious accommodation with first class catering and unique guided activities, a concept they definitely live up to!
Owner Graham Austick and lodge manager, Elisabeth Braathen, took very good care of us and fed us more than well. I had an overload of Norwegian dishes I haven’t had in a very long time, especially the fresh fish! One day we even ate the cod Chris got out of the sea only a few hours earlier, amazing! I didn’t really catch any fish, all I did was ruin one of the fishing rods….

We had two successful days during the 5 or 6 full days we had there. Day two at the lodge was supposed to be a day with good weather in the morning and then get cloudy around noon, however, the weather Gods were giving us a full day of awesome light! So we got out there early, got in the boat, a uniquely designed 35ft / 11m cabin RIB boat, which we had a lot of fun with! The cool thing about Lyngen Lodge is their idea of ‘Summit to Sea’, taking the boat out to locations where you hike up the mountains to then ski back down to the boat. Our actual hike was only about 4hrs that day, however with filming and taking pictures we were probably at the summit around 6-7 pm and it took us a couple hours to make our way back. The view was absolutely amazing the whole day and when the sun got closer to sunset, the light was unreal! I had one of my most incredible experiences in the mountains that day for sure! Just check out the pictures!

Special creds to the camera crew; Tom Day, Josh Haskins, Colin Witherill, and Peter Mathis were carrying their heavy gear skinning all over the place without complaining at all! They’re practically machines. ?

I think some of us were actually sort of okay with the fact that the next day turned out to be a weather day as the previous day ended up being about 15 hrs long out there…!
Can’t really complain about a day in the hot tub right in front of the mountains, LOTS of delicious food and snacks, sauna, etc….!

Second day – HELIDAY!
So first off, the fact that we got to get permission for a heli is pretty incredible! It is extremely hard to get one in Norway, as they are very concerned with protecting the environment. However, we got permission to land on certain areas, mainly on this one island, Ulvøya.
Our pilot, Tom, was really cool and flew in the night before. Unfortunately there wasn’t as much snow as we hoped for, so we didn’t get to ski certain areas that we planned on. However, we got some fun skiing in for sure, and we skied along a gnarly edge on Blåtind (name of a peak), which was pretty sick. And again, the light was so amazing all day, especially in the afternoon/evening.

In the end of the week I believe we all felt that we got some good work done even though we only had a few days skiing, we all probably left a couple pounds heavier due to the magnificent food, and it was fun to get to know each other before taking off in all different locations around the world.

Lyngen Lodge was definitely an experience that’ll be remembered for the longest time, I can only hope to get back there one day and ski under the midnight sun!

To check it out more about our trip and Lyngen Lodge here’s some links to their site and our blogs/websites:

Lyngen Lodge - http://www.lyngenlodge.com/

Is your child a ‘natural performer? Maybe High School Musical is their favourite movie? Or do they just love to sing and dance? This is a fabulous chance to learn more about singing, dancing and acting – in a hands on program that culminates in a live show at The Arts Station! Don’t get frightened…performing is fun! Under the expert direction of Denise Baughan and Coraley Letcher of Rhythm Incorporated Studio of Dance children will work on their musical theatre skills, culminating in a “mini-musical” performance!  A two week intensive where fun, learning new things and performance are the focus.
Cost: $55 a week ($110 total) children must be signed up for both weeks to perform in the show.
Dance & Theatre, An Art Station Program
For 7-17yr.olds.
Mon.–Thur. August 10-13, 9:30a-12:30p
Mon.–Thur. August 17-20, 9:30a-12:30p

www.theartsstation.com

Canada’s housing market has become so much more grounded since the ugly property bust of the last recession that this time around it is one of the most resilient sectors of the economic downturn.

The lessons learned from the housing bust of the early 1990s helped prevent Canada from being tempted down the subprime path that devastated the United States and, combined with record low interest rates and government stimulus, has caused the impact of the latest slump to be less severe and relatively short-lived, figures released Tuesday underscore.

“The turnaround in Canadian housing this year might be the single most surprising turnabout we’ve seen in any economic indicator I can think of,” said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. “The fact we saw a little bit of a rebound isn’t a total shock, but the extent of it is nothing short of amazing.”

Sales of existing homes in June were up a seasonally adjusted 8.7% from the previous month, marking a fifth straight increase, Canadian Real Estate Association figures showed Tuesday. Sales were 17.9% higher than a year earlier. Resales activity rocketed along at a record pace in the second quarter, surging by 31.5% from the first quarter of 2009.

Mr. Porter said the results were “galaxies away” from the yearly decline of about 40% registered at the start of the year.

Millan Mulraine, an economics strategist at TD Securities, said record low mortgage rates were a key difference between the housing bust of the 1990s, when interest rates were on the increase. The shock, the recovery from which took a decade, resulted in Canada introducing tighter lending standards, which helped prevent house prices becoming too overblown prior to U.S. subprime crisis.

Mr. Mulraine said that while the house prices, sales and construction suffered along with the rest of the recession-struck economy this time around, the market’s relatively stable condition and the relative health of Canada’s banking sector created an opportunity for homebuyers to take advantage of record low interest rates, more affordable prices and government stimulus.

The rise in sales activity as well as a drop in new listing have caused the inventory of unsold homes to fall to 4.2 months of supply — the lowest level since August 2007 and well below the peak of 12.8 months hit at the beginning of the year.

“Inventory levels are still high in many markets, but fewer new listings and rising sales activity suggests that the selection of homes available for sale may shrink as the year progresses,” said Gregory Klump, the chief economist at CREA. “The supply of homes up for sale needs to be drawn down further before average price increases become more widespread among local markets.”

The average price of homes sold in the month was up 1.7% from a year earlier, skewed higher by rising demand in some of the country’s most expensive markets, such as Toronto and Vancouver.

Mr. Klump said monthly sales activity would likely not continue on an unbroken rise, but activity in the second half of the year would “meet or surpass” the results of the first half.

Other sectors of the housing market have also registered improvements. Figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation showed last week the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts rose 8% to 140,700 in June, while Statistics Canada building permits figures showed that construction intentions rose 14.8% in May. Meanwhile, RE/Max data showed sales in both Toronto and Vancouver set new record highs for June activity.

Michael Polzler, the executive vice president of RE/MAX Ontario-Atlantic Canada said the recent surge in resale activity was due to a combination of pent-up demand as a result of the hit to activity at the beginning of the recession with record low mortgage rates and better affordability.

He said recent buyers had been lucky to snap up some of the best real estate deals in years, with conditions now beginning to favour sellers. In the space of just 18 months, the housing market has transitioned from a sellers’ market to a buyers’ market and back again.

For Fernie real estate click here.

The lawyer for a Quebec man who barely survived being lost for nine days in the B.C. backcountry and watched his wife die in the ordeal says she’s surprised by the level of animosity being thrust toward her client.A Google search for Gilles Blackburn can turn up images in which he’s depicted as a clown, and postings in which he’s called a wide assortment of names and urged never to come back to B.C.

The venomous comments follow Blackburn’s decision to sue RCMP, the province, a resort and the search and rescue squad in Golden, B.C., alleging they were negligent in not responding to the SOS signals he stamped in the snow begging for help last February.

The lawsuit has caused the Golden search and rescue team to shut down and has sent teams across the country scrambling to determine whether they have insurance against such legal action.

But Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, Blackburn’s lawyer, says the public appears to have lost sight of who the victim is in this case.

“I think it’s important that people be reminded who’s being sued here and why,” Wilhelm-Morden said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“Golden Search and Rescue and the RCMP heard (Blackburn and wife Marie Josee-Fortin’s) cries for help and they did nothing.”

Golden and District Search and Rescue announced it was suspending its services last week after Blackburn filed two lawsuits against it, one on his own behalf, one for his children.

Blackburn is seeking damages for negligence after he and his wife became lost while skiing from the top of a lift within the resort on Feb. 15.

Fortin died of hypothermia seven days into the ordeal.

When Blackburn filed the legal action, he said he wanted to make sure no one was ever again left stranded in the woods without help.

But, in an ironic twist, search and rescue teams throughout B.C. are now considering shutting down because of the lawsuit and others across Canada are scrambling to re-examine their insurance policies.

Nonetheless, Wilhelm-Morden says she doesn’t believe the lawsuit and the potential closures will put more outdoor enthusiasts at risk. In fact, she says some good could come out of the ordeal.

“The RCMP are the people who are charged with finding lost people. The RCMP are the ones who initiate and authorize searches,” Wilhelm-Morden said.

“When search and rescue teams are available, they use search and rescue teams, amongst other people. If search and rescue teams aren’t available, they will use other people. Lost people aren’t going to stay lost.”

The president of the Search and Rescue Volunteers Association of Canada is among those who has said the lawsuit could have a strong ripple effect across the country, forcing 15,000 volunteers to reconsider if they want to risk everything they own, but Wilhelm-Morden said that’s not likely to happen.

“If it comes to light . . . that there are other problems - not just with the Golden search and rescue but with other search and rescue organizations in the province - if those problems are fixed as a result of these lawsuits, then that’s a good thing for everybody,” she said.

When asked if the court action might force search and rescue teams to reconsider their volunteer work, Wilhelm-Morden said, “That’s what liability insurance is for.”

Wilhelm-Morden also stressed the difference between negligence and simply making a mistake.

“It’s not a case of just making a mistake. Mistakes happen. There has to be negligence before anybody will be responsible at law.”

A message left for a member of the Golden search and rescue team was not returned.

In B.C., the provincial government covers volunteers for liability, but the search and rescue societies are responsible for getting their own coverage.

The Golden team has expressed concerns about the coverage gaps and the fact that the province’s coverage kicks in only when searchers are called in to duty and not if a proper search isn’t launched.

The search and rescue team in Kimberley, B.C., followed Golden’s lead by suspending its services for almost a week before eventually returning to duty. Cranbrook and Fernie are considering pulling the plug, while Kamloops has expressed its concern about the legal action.

Vernon volunteers have given the provincial government 60 days to protect rescuers from potential lawsuits. If it fails to follow through, the Vernon team says it will completely withdraw its services.

Tim Jones with Vancouver’s North Shore Search and Rescue said his team and four of the province’s busiest groups in Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton, and Lions Bay met this week and decided to maintain normal operations.

“Until the province provides search and rescue services, we’re not going to withdraw it. That’s not why we joined,” Jones said.

“We felt that taking the high road and being professional in the way we address this issue is the way to do it, not by withdrawing services.”

Recognizing those words may have come across as a bit of a swipe, Jones detailed the great work the Golden search and rescue team has done in the past three decades.

He said anybody can make a mistake and his team isn’t abandoning the Golden unit after the years of work they’ve provided in dangerous terrain.

Jones called the insurance issue an important one for all teams and said any gaps in coverage need to be immediately addressed.

He has been in contact with representatives of B.C.’s Provincial Emergency Program and described the conversation as “great,” adding that the province is listening to all concerns.

Jones said his team did an immediate and complete review following the Golden incident, suggesting legal action isn’t necessary to invoke changes in protocol.

“Hopefully, there’s a lot we can learn from this,” he said.

The Canadian Press

After retiring as an RCMP officer, Charles Scheideman had had a bellyful of policing, which was changing in ways not to his liking. He was a street cop, one of the close-cropped breed who understood the ways of the world. He knew how to handle delicate situations, and he knew when to throw away the key to the hoosegow.

An adulterous couple out hunting killed a couple of horses? Well, pay the farmer for his horses and no charges(or publicity) will be levied. Case closed.

This worldly-wise approach was being snuffed by office-bound bureaucrats with university degrees and little or no understanding of human nature. Worse, political correctness was degrading more than just language.
The snappy image of the RCMP marching band notwithstanding, former Mountie and author Charles Scheideman finds today’s force is offering the public less of a service than in the old days when officers learned on the job.

Why, back in the day…

The Victoria, B. C. writer has gathered his own stories, as well as those told by other officers, in Policing the Fringe, an account of his two decades chasing scofflaws in the vast wilderness of the British Columbia Interior. Scheideman patrolled such hardscrabble places as Lytton, Quesnel and Williams Lake, “a frontier town, a hard-drinking, long-distance-driving sort of place.” Liquor inspired most of the capers in the book, booze too often turning stupid behaviour into the criminal.

There are plenty of car wrecks and enough gore to satisfy fans of the macabre. Among the gruesome delights are maggot-ridden bodies and the puzzle of a crushed car at the bottom of a mountain in which no human remains are found. Turns out the wreck was not discovered until after wolverines had feasted on the driver’s remains.

Other tales involve feral children; a bank heist in Fernie schemed by Keystone Kriminals( “the plan was so poorly thought out that it was more like comic theatre than a criminal conspiracy”);and the recovery of an apparent suicide with a gruesome head wound from a gunshot, during which one officer’s bitter observation– “at least the asshole came out here and didn’t make a mess inside” –caused the victim to hoist himself on an elbow to “glare with his remaining eye.” Incredibly, the man recovered after getting reconstructive surgery.

Scheideman reserves his angriest judgment for lawyers: “Ninety-nine per cent of them give the rest a bad name.”

His working life coincided with the creation of the marijuana-growing industry, as the hot valley sun helped create bumper harvests of such varieties of B. C. bud as Fraser Funk and Stein Stun.

The cop did not have much time for those who defended the cultivators. At one trial, he could not disguise his disgust.

“I have always been puzzled by the fact that lawyers, who are officers of Her Majesty’s court, are so willing to accept payments in such obviously dirty money,” he writes. “In this case, I took the opportunity at the trial to ask the lawyer if he ever engaged in barter with his clients or if it was necessary for them to convert their product to cash in every case. He curtly replied that everyone was entitled to counsel. I replied that I was well aware of that, but that he had not answered my question. He walked away.”

In another case, he was frustrated by a judge who went easy on an accused who turned out to be a fellow lodge brother.

Police often deal with the worst of us at our worst, perhaps understandably resulting in a jaundiced view of humankind, with attendant prejudices. Scheideman’s attitude towards aboriginal peoples can at best be described as paternalistic. “We felt pity for the native people,” he writes of his youth in Alberta, “but we were unable to understand their laid-back, apparently apathetic attitude.” To criticize such an attitude is to reflect a political correctness that fuels much of the retired cop’s anger at what has happened to his profession.

“Street-educated cops who roll with the punches and dish out as good as they get have not got a snowball’s chance in hell of advancement beyond their current assigned level. The exams and assessments for promotion are all formulated by the behind-the-scenes folks with rosecoloured glasses.”

In 1974, in the middle of his career, which lasted from 1961 until 1989, the officer took part in a car chase through Kicking Horse Pass during which he fired his gun at a speeding Fiat Spider.

He assumes today he would be pilloried for such an action, though he delights in having been presented with a handmade trophy by his daughter. Topped by a toy sports car, the trophy honours “Sharp Shot Scheideman.”

Policing the Fringe is a crisply written account of one man’s experience with the Mounties. Fans of police tales will find much to admire. Others will find insight into the attitudes of an earlier generation of law enforcers.

Canwest News Service

Eleven members of Canada’s ladies alpine ski team are heading to Whistler for intensive dryland training next week, hoping the effort will lead to Olympic medals when they return for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games next February.

Britt Janyk (Whistler, BC) is among the athletes who will be at the dryland camp, taking place in her hometown. Janyk, member of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team since 1996 and a World Cup downhill winner in 2007, said having a conditioning camp in Whistler provides the athletes with unique inspiration, with the Olympic Games now seven months away.

“A training camp like this one is a great opportunity for the team to come together in the Olympic environment and become more familiar with the surroundings. We can hike the race hill and just soak up the environment of Whistler a little,” said Janyk.

“Our summer conditioning training is what prepares us for our on-snow training. It’s important to work hard in the gym and make improvements in your conditioning so that when it comes time for on-snow training you can get the most out of it,” added Janyk, who has also won 11 Pontiac GMC Canadian Championships in her career. 

Canada’s ladies alpine ski team held a training camp in June, with athletes split between Calgary, AB and Mont-Tremblant, QC. Dryland coach Craig Hill said the upcoming training camp in Whistler will have a higher intensity than the training held earlier in the spring.

“The athletes will be doing a lower volume of work compared to the last training camp,” said Hill. “We’ll be lifting heavier loads with more emphasis higher intensities. In this camp we will be doing a lot of outdoor activities to change things up a little bit, take advantage of some of the things Whistler has to offer. The girls have spent some long hours training in the gym the past couple months.”

Hill said there is a reason why this training camp is in Whistler, site of the alpine events during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

“We are bringing this training camp to Whistler because it is a small mountain town, making everything easily accessible. The community is incredibly supportive of our program and everything we need is right here. It is a great place to train in the summer.  As well, we want the athletes to become familiar with the environment prior to the Games. Some of the older veteran athletes have spent plenty of time in Whistler, but the younger ones haven’t been here that often,” said Hill.

The week long training camp gets underway July 13.

Joining Janyk in Whistler are Emily Brydon (Fernie, BC), Shona Rubens (Canmore, AB), Georgia Simmerling (West Vancouver, BC), Kelly VanderBeek (Kitchener, ON), Larisa Yurkiw (Owen Sound, ON), Brigitte Acton (Mont-Tremblant, QC), Marie-Michèle Gagnon (Lac-Etchemin, QC), Anna Goodman (Pointe Claire, QC), Marie-Pierre Préfontaine (Saint-Sauveur, QC) and Geneviève Simard (Val-Morin, QC).

The ladies will have their first on-snow camp of the season in New Zealand in August. Canada will also have several athletes taking part in the New Zealand Winter Games, which are scheduled from August 24 to 30.

The ladies 2009/2010 World Cup season kicks off with a giant slalom on October 24, 2009 in Sölden, AUT. The Bombardier Lake Louise Winterstart opens the ladies speed season with two downhill races and a super G, starting on December 4, 2009. The 2010 Olympic Winter Games will highlight the season, taking place in Whistler, BC from February 12 to 28.