Canadian Birkebeiner 2017



Some moments captured at the 2017 Canadian Birkebeiner Ski Festival. Very fun time doing the 55km with the pack full of Norwegian books, sand, Joel the troll, and a snickers bar. #spiritoftheski

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NEWO/Spirit of the Land Permaculture and Fruit Rescue Projects

Image
The Concept of Abundance When we decided to get married we were beyond thrilled to share our love with all of our friends and family. What a gift it is that we can all gather in a meaningful place to express our devotion to one another. One thing that distressed us about our wedding was the image we had in our minds of a big pile of plates, crockpots, and other material wedding gifts. What we need in our lives is your love. The material things will always be there for us at the thrift store. Consequently, we have decided to ask that no one brings us gifts. When we chatted about what we would do to still follow the tradition of giving as we begin a new step in our lives we instantly knew what to do. Our good friend Rajan Rathnavalu is one of the founders of a Camrose based non-profit organization,  NEWO . He says that their company's outlook is that when we receive abundance, we should give it back to the community. We knew that NEWO would know what to do with our abundance, a
Read more

Jackfish Lake

Image
Instead of hitting the books and spending reading week as academia would prefer, Emily and I headed for the Saddle Hills north of Spring Lake to the Trapper's Cabin on Jackfish Lake. Here are a few journal entries and photos depicting our experience.  Preparations: February 20th 2017 :  As part of our preparations for the two day trip, Emily and I baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. We came to eat far too much raw cookie, which speaks not only to my weak willpower, but also to my mother's delicious recipe. Luckily, I also managed to shovel in a few baked cookies as well, justifying my gluttony with the secret intent to carbo-load despite the fact that we were to ski a whole 10km the next day. Such a distance hardly requires a few face-fulls of cookie the evening beforehand.  The Voyage. Tuesday, February 21st 2017 :       We set off at about 1:15pm from the Spring Lake boat launch and hit the trail. After following Dad's snowshoe tracks for a good hour and a bi
Read more

A Semester in Norway

Image
A Semester in Norway By: Emily McIlroy As I end my time in Norway I reflect on how it all began; a big dream in the small town of Camrose. Having taken multiple Scandinavian courses with Ingrid Urberg on Scandinavian culture and language my fascination pulled my heart towards the wonders of Norway. Urberg’s support in applying to study abroad was that of great enthusiasm and interest, and with previous Augustana graduates raving to me about the program in Norway , everything fell into place. Before long I was boarding a plane along with my fiancé to travel across the Atlantic for a semester. Upon arrival we had a brief introduction to the Nordic Skiing and Outdoor Life/ Friluftsliv program. We would be taking three classes during the winter period; Basic Skiing, Norwegian Perspectives on Outdoor Education, and Outdoors in the Wintertime (backcountry and telemark skiing, and snow camping). I was curious to see how I would find the basic skiing class considering I
Read more