History
Some history of NAFSC from the memory banks of Dustin Wilson.
I have been asked to recollect my personal experience of NAFSC.
My involvement with skiing began at a very young age.
As a young boy from Edmonton my parents both ski patrolled at Marmott Basin in Jasper so winters for me from a very young age involved a weekend adventure in the motor home to the mountains. I dreamed of what the snow was going to be like staring out the window of the bunk over the cab of the motor home every time we hit Hwy 16 west until I would fall asleep (usually before Edson as my mom’s tells me).
I would wake up to a parking lot full of cars and my young friends eager to hit every jump we could find and every tree run that my crew (all aged 6) could find. We would hit the slopes to find that perfect jump and in those days (1970ʼs) building jumps was not allowed, so we had to settle for the “ au natural” man made or should I say ski made jumps that we could find with drop offs. Drop offs that didn’t need any coaxing to fly off other than three buddies standing there saying wow that looks way too big! Moments later, three musketeers were stuck in the bottom of some tree well waiting for one of our dads to pull us out.
Well that’s how it all started and from there as I grew to ski all the terrain at Marmot by the age of 7, I wanted to take it upside down.
Going upside down was the ultimate three musketeer dare. On an over the waist day (two feet of snow for us) we would find our special place and try taking it up and over the “front flip” . We all had a go but that was never enough for me. I wanted the “back flip”. So my dad would take me and my brother Crosby to the Kingsman diving pool on Sunday nights to practice flipping into the pool. Then after a few years of this there were a group of guys who were older doing the exact same thing... they were practicing for the snow! It was a dream come true.
The crew practicing in the pool included Chris Nicoles, Doug Ward, Ron Deans and various others. Chris and Ron were responsible for getting the club going in those days (mid 80ʼs at the Edmonton Ski Club). There were no T-Bars back then, only rope tows. Ron and Chris had two “floaters” (small upright jumps built out of steel and wood) so we didn’t need a huge pile of snow to have jumps.
I spent a couple of winters at the Edmonton Ski Club until we had an aerial site built at Lake Eden (just west of the city on Hwy 16). Doug Ward who in his day was a jack of all skiing. Doug raced pro alpine as well as competed in Freestyle events doing Moguls, Aerials and Ballet. Doug coached me and others their first back flips on snow under the lights of Lake Eden. Chad Smith and I would spend our summers camping out at my grandma’s house in Red Deer practicing our back flips at the water ramp. The club was run by Doug when we moved to Lake Eden and i believe the club stayed there until 1991? During this time Freestyle was really strong in Alberta with 20-30 kids per club competing across the province. The club then returned to Edmonton Ski Club and by that time i had made the Alberta team and aspired to go to the Olympics. I did return one winter in 1993 with a broken arm from a recent world cup in Whistler to coach the club while my arm healed. At that time Dave Walker was running the club and we had a very talented little girl show up and show is how it was done! I think she was 8 years old and she skied better than most of the older kids! Well, that little girl went onto winning a Gold medal in Torino. As far as the history of the club past that I will have to leave it up to the Heils and Duncan Purvis who also ran the club.
The reason most of us from this club went onto have success not only in skiing but in life is from people volunteering their time to run and operate a club. Without these people, I know from team mates that life would have pulled us down a different path. So, I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone who is reading this and hope that you can continue your contribution to a club which has produced an Olympic gold medal and a gold medal coach. NASFC is my Freestyle roots and I hope that it continues into the future to produce more gold medals for Canada and keep kids safe on and off the hill.
Regards,
Dustin Wilson.
Freestyle skiing is a Passion of skiing that brings people together to enjoy life!
Get out there and enjoy it!!