At the top of the hill, from the starting gates they are launched – young athletes hurtling towards a series of slalom or giant slalom gates, all in search of a singular pursuit: to cross the finish line faster than any other skier in their group.

This is a sport that simply screams of individuality.

Yet as Alpine Ontario Northern Ontario District coach Dave Hunt discusses the new initiative that was a divisional camp hosted in Alberta in November, it is a “team approach” that prevails, particularly considering that they are in a part of the province where numbers in the sport make that notion almost unavoidable.

“We really do have to work together more,” said Hunt, outlining the specifics of a High Performance initiative that merged a solid core of Adanac Ski Club (ASC) representatives with fellow skiers from clubs across the north.

“It’s a program that is designed to supplement what the clubs are doing,” continued the man who has been involved with ASC, in some capacity or another, since the age of five in 1982. “We still very much want to run our own programs but the Regional HP is there to supplement and not pull skiers away from their clubs.”

“It brings everyone together.”

For a period of just under two weeks, this group of northern teenagers and coaches made their ways to the vistas that are Sunshine Village, Lake Louise and the Nakiska Ski Area, heading to the mountains that simply do not exist in these parts.

“In Ontario, in general, we just wouldn’t be skiing in November,” said Hunt. “We travel for the volume of skiing, bigger hills, longer runs – and the idea that we are all together.”

With most of the group taking to the slopes for the first time since the spring of 2024, week one was focused on getting comfortable in a variety of settings, helping the skiers become “more adaptable”, as Hunt would note.

“For the first week, they didn’t set any courses, so we were allowed to explore the mountain,” exclaimed 13 year old Nick Pegues, a grade eight student at Lo-Ellen Park Intermediate School who was first introduced to skiing at the age of four.

“That was pretty cool. We actually got to see some national racers at the hill. There were people from other countries there.”

In week two, the focus shifted to more skill-based learning, with some points of emphasis shared right across the group and others being of a more individual nature.

A grade eight student at E.S. Macdonald-Cartier, Rebecca Jutras is beginning to feel that need for speed that motivates so many of those who enjoy the racing aspects of alpine ski. “When I started skiing, I was pretty okay at having a good turn shape; I just wanted to make every gate,” she said.

“But now that I have good turn shape, I can do some vertical movement and get close to the gates, putting more pressure on my outside ski to make me go faster.”

Much like her teammate, Jutras was quick to take note of the ski habits of older athletes for whom international circuit racing is the norm. “Some of them were doing slalom and some were doing giant slalom,” she explained. “The ones that were doing slalom were really close to the gates and their upper bodies were really calm.”

“The legs were doing all the work,” Jutras continued. “I wanted to come out (of the camp) with better balance and control – and that’s what I came out with.”

For as much as Nick Pegues enjoys a family ski trip now and then, partaking in the glade runs (trails that run through trees and such), strapping on his non-racing rock skis, the son of a father who skies (and taught his mother) is also a big fan of race course runs, especially when the format is changed with great frequency.

“The course we had today was pretty wide so you had to jam your turns because it was getting icy,” he said. “I like it when you can really flow through a course, a bit on the faster side of turns, perhaps integrating a flush or two (a section of a slalom course that contains two or three consecutive vertical gates).”

“I find those fun and they generate a lot of speed.”

The engagement of both youngsters is music to the ears of coach Hunt and his compatriots from North Bay and Sault Ste Marie, looking back on their greatest takeaways from an undertaking that the NOD would dearly love to incorporate on an annual basis.

“The fact that we had so much buy-in, that coachability of the kids was great,” said Hunt. “We sometimes throw things at them outside the box. They trusted us. They realized that we were there for a reason, there for them.”

“We want to make them better skiers.”

From top to bottom of this team, that was the goal.

Joining Nick Pegues and Rebecca Jutras as the Adanac Ski Club representatives on Team NOD were Ella Prosperi, Anna Corsi, Charlie Chisholm, Elliot St Onge Winckel, Ryan Tagliabracci, Cael Manella, Kaiden Saidi Smith, Asher Hunt and Lauren Bouchard