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Feature - Changing attitudes

The Adaptive Ski Program is only part of a move toward making Whistler a centre for disabled visitors and athletes

Freddy Barclay's dad has noticed that every time his 10-year-old goes skiing, a month later his speech improves slightly.

That may sound a little strange but any slight improvement in Freddy Barclay's speech is a blessing to his family.

That's because he was born mentally and physically handicapped – Freddy only has about five per cent speech. That's one of the most frustrating things about his disability, because he cannot communicate his needs.

His dad puts the improvement down to the sheer thrill and adrenaline rush of skiing.

For the fourth year in a row the Barclay's have travelled to Whistler from Edinburgh, Scotland to take Freddy skiing and to take advantage of Whistler's Adaptive Ski Program.

So while Freddy's mum, dad, older brother and sister head down the mountain on their skis, he hits the slopes beside his family with a ski instructor and a sit ski.

And he just flies.

In the last five years the Whistler Adaptive Ski Program has also taken off, growing more than 10 times in size and giving more people like Freddy the chance to have wings for a day. If current trends hold up it will continue to expand.

This year was also unique for Freddy as his older cousin and fellow sit skier Pippa Blake joined him on the mountain.

Blake, a former skier, now has multiple sclerosis and cannot use the left side of her body. That doesn't stop her from getting into a sit ski and skiing with an adaptive instructor.

And if the thrills and cheers heading down the Olympic Run were any indication, this weekend's ski day was a huge success for the entire family.

The adaptive program, which is still relatively young, is key to making Whistler the ultimate destination spot for disabled tourists, especially as adaptive sports continue to boom in North America.

"If they are the leaders in the ski industry... they should have the best disabled program," said Mary Clark, a recreational therapist with the spinal cord program at GF Strong Rehab Centre in Vancouver.

Roughly 120 new spinal cord patients go through the rehab centre every year. Most are young. Most are men. And most are risk-takers.

Clark has been a recreational therapist at GF Strong for 10 years. She said the social ramifications of life after a spinal cord injury can sometimes be more disabling than the injury itself. Frequently people who wind up in a wheelchair lose friends and have to deal with a changed role within the family unit.

"Getting active gets you out of the house... and connected to your community again," she said.

Adaptive skiing can sometimes be the perfect fit to keep patients active and involved. Mastering the sport can also give disabled people a new confidence that they can then apply to other aspects of their life.

Just ask the head coach of the B.C. Disabled Ski Team what the sport has meant to him over the past 23 years.

In the late ’70s Phil Chew lost his right leg to cancer.

"I needed something that would be an equalizer for my own brain. So I got good at skiing," he said.

Before he had cancer he had only skied a few times on two legs, preferring to play sports like soccer instead.

But soccer wasn't an option with only one leg. So as soon as he finished his chemotherapy, he was on the hills.

"It helped me," he said.

"I wasn't thinking about the fact that I had cancer and that my chance of surviving wasn't very good. I was just thinking about skiing and how much of a rush it was."

The sheer numbers today show that more and more people with a host of varying disabilities are discovering this "rush."

Five years ago, the adaptive program at Whistler catered to roughly 40 skier visits. This year the program will surpass 500 skier visits.

From its cramped beginnings in the basement of the Carleton Lodge, Whistler's Adaptive Ski Program has exploded in such a short time that a few months ago Whistler-Blackcomb provided a new equipment centre.

Now the Adaptive Ski Program is a fully integrated part of the mountain with a new space at Olympic Station.

This centre is bigger, with more equipment, and is much easier for students to access because they are already on the snow once they strap into their adaptive gear.

"There are an increasing number of people who are aware of our program and aware that Whistler-Blackcomb has the capability to cater to this," said Larnie Meeking, program co-ordinator.

New students have been flocking to the Whistler hills from across Canada, the U.S. and overseas, regardless of their age, level or disability.

The program caters to all – mentally challenged, blind, amputees, paraplegics and quadriplegics, among many others.

The equipment includes bi-skis, mono-skis for people who use wheelchairs. For stand-up skiers there are outriggers for balance, offering one, two, three or four-track skiing techniques, named for the number of tracks left in the snow. Outriggers are used like poles, with ski tips on the end for balance.

There are also instructors for the blind, visually impaired and the deaf.

Increased awareness and better equipment makes the sport less daunting and therefore more accessible.

"As things are being made available for people with disabilities there are more people out there wanting to try it," said Hal O'Leary, founder of the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Winter Park, Colorado – the largest adaptive program in North America.

"It's bringing people out from the treatment centres. It's bringing people out from just sitting around and giving them an avenue where they can express themselves and work with what they have rather than what they don't have."

O'Leary said the technological advancements in equipment are incredible, from more lightweight ski gear to computerized chips in the knee, which help activate the joint electronically.

"People are becoming much more dynamic in what they chose to do and in so doing, they need better limbs," he said.

People are using the adaptive program as a springboard to bigger and better things.

Former snowboard competitor, Genevieve Halle, has used Whistler's adaptive program for the first time this year. She has been up about eight times and is confident after a few more lessons she will be on the mountain independent of her adaptive instructors.

The 23-year-old Quebec City native has been in a wheelchair for about one year now, after over-rotating in a jump while competing in the U.S. Open snowboarding event.

It's not that she doesn't like her adaptive instructors. On the contrary, she has nothing but good things to say about them.

She just wants to be able to ski on her own once again.

"I just can't wait to be good enough to go with my friends," she said.

And now she is singularly focused on getting her own sit ski.

The program has given her back the same thrills and freedoms she once had snowboarding.

Whistler’s Adaptive Ski Program has been modelled after the oldest and largest program in North America, Winter Park’s National Sports Center for the Disabled.

Founder Hal O'Leary says the NSCD helps the resort economy in Winter Park because of the sheer number of visitors who come just to take part in the program.

"There is a tremendous entourage," he said.

"For instance, if a little girl comes in from back east somewhere, she might come with her grandparents, an aunt or an uncle and then her siblings and her parents. They come in, they rent condominiums, they will rent a car in Denver to drive up here, they will eat in the village, they will eat and buy lift passes at the ski area and they'll rent equipment.

"(The program) brings in a tremendous amount of people who become involved in the ski industry and consequently, it certainly helps the economy."

His vision for the NSCD dates back to a winter's day in 1970.

Without knowing what he was getting himself into, O'Leary, then a young ski instructor, volunteered to give day-long ski lessons to 23 children, all leg amputees from the Children's Hospital in Denver.

After that day, despite its tremendous difficulties – including one child telling him he hated his guts – O'Leary was hooked.

"I made the disability for that moment disappear," he said.

"Skiing (gave) them that movement that they don't have when they walk.

"From the very first day I realized the great need for recreational activity for not only children but adults."

After 32 years in the business, the program now caters to 3,000 disabled visitors annually, providing them with 28,000 lessons each year.

And the NSCD caters to year-round recreational activities for the disabled. Amid a wide-range of adaptive sports, there's whitewater rafting, horseback riding, biking and hiking.

The Whistler Adaptive Ski Program hopes to mimic this aspect of the NCSD and offer a four-season program.

The challenge is made much easier because Whistler Village was designed with wheelchair accessibility in mind. This being the case, getting around town is relatively hassle-free for people in wheelchairs.

"We have first hand experience to get someone with disabilities up the mountain and around the village," said Sian Blyth, director of the Adaptive Ski Program.

"Whistler holds a lot of appeal for (disabled) friends of mine. It's second to none for them because it's so easy to get around."

Despite this, the disabled market is relatively untapped in Whistler.

"It's a pretty hard market to crack," said Emma Bayliffe.

For two years now, Bayliffe and her partner have been designing package tours to Whistler for the physically disabled through their company, Access Sea to Sky Adventures.

The key is to market Whistler as a disabled destination resort because it has tons of amenities for disabled tourists.

Bayliffe knows first hand the advantages and disadvantages of getting around Whistler in a chair. She has been in a wheelchair for almost seven years now after a snowmobiling accident on the Pemberton Ice Cap on Boxing Day 1995.

"The village is pretty good," she said.

"It's just knowing how to get into the buildings."

She sites the Sushi Village building as the perfect example. From the front it looks impossible to get to for someone in a wheelchair, because of the looming stairs. But for those in the know, there is a back entrance to the building.

Creating more awareness about these Whistler quirks is one of the challenges for Access Sea to Sky.

The other major challenge here is affordability – not exactly a new challenge to Whistler.

In a survey of the high-end hotels, Bayliffe says there is plenty of wheelchair accessible accommodation to choose from. But trying to find something under $100/night is a problem.

"Hostels are not wheelchair accessible," said Bayliffe.

"It would be nice to have more lower-end accommodation here."

The other problem, which is universal when it comes to wheelchair accessibility, is parking.

Parking in Whistler is a problem not so much for the lack of spots, rather because non-wheelchair drivers park in wheelchair zones.

"People think of them as convenience spots," said Bayliffe.

But these things are small details compared to Whistler's advantages.

"We would really like to bring people to Whistler because Whistler has a lot to offer," she said.

In addition, the municipality continues to enhance the services for the physically disabled.

Last summer, the resort installed a ramp at Rainbow Lake to ease access into the water for physically disabled people, said Bayliffe.

At the moment Access Sea to Sky is focusing mainly on summer activities, like swimming.

"The snow is going to scare people away unless they are specifically coming to ski," she said.

It gets more difficult to move around when the snow covers the sidewalks.

The summer is a different story for disabled visitors, with bike excursions, fishing, swimming, and whitewater rafting, among a wide range of other activities.

The valley trails are the perfect place for wheelchairs and hand cycles.

Whistler local John Ryan knows a thing or two about hand cycling after going across Canada on his hand cycle to raise money for spinal cord research.

"We travel a fair bit as far as North America goes," said Ryan.

"I've never found anywhere better for cycling for me. It's magical really."

The goal for Access Sea to Sky is to make people more aware of this magic.

Whistler already serves as a training ground for disabled ski athletes. Currently head coach Phil Chew is recruiting skiers for the B.C. Disabled Ski Team who are interested in going on to the Canadian Disabled Alpine Ski Team and competing for Canada at the World Cup or Olympic level.

Awareness of disabled sports is also getting better and this year's Salt Lake Paralympics saw more TV coverage than ever before.

Canada won a total of 15 medals at the Paralympics, coming in sixth place overall.

In the 2010 bid proposal Whistler is slated to host all of the Paralympic events – alpine skiing, biathlon and cross-country skiing, sledge ice hockey and wheelchair dancesport.

"This would be an unbelievable showcase for disabled sports," said Chew, who felt the thrill of downhill racing for his country at the Paralympics before turning to coaching.

He envisions disabled skiing at Whistler running the whole gamut, from the adaptive program, which would introduce the sport to beginners, to those at the other end, who train and race at the highest levels.

"I've always dreamed of having a training centre here for the disabled," he said.

"A legacy of 2010 could perhaps be that we end up with a centre where the disabled could come and stay, which was totally wheelchair accessible with exercise equipment that was adapted for disabled people."

If the current trend is anything to go by the future of disabled sport at Whistler looks promising.

And in addition to the revenue that disabled visitors bring to the resort, and the thrill of independence that adaptive sports give to the disabled, adaptive programs serve another advantage.

"People, when they see someone who is visually impaired skiing down the hill at a tremendous speed, or someone in a sit ski skiing moguls on a black diamond... maybe even better than most of the public, it gives them a different attitude and opinion of someone with a disability," said O'Leary.



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