Skijoring: a sport you’ve likely never heard of pushed a resort town to its limit

A pair of people Skijoring on the Bow River during the Banff Winter Carnival are seen in an archival photograph, taken sometime between 1903 and 1942. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Archives at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, (V263/3953). (Mandatory credit)

BANFF — Cole Carey learned quickly to keep his mouth shut when skiing in the snowy wake of a galloping horse: there’s the danger of snow, ice and the occasional flavour of animal droppings dusted into the air.

Carey is what’s called a slider in skijoring, a winter sport that could be the seasonal alternative to water-skiing — substituting water for snow, a wetsuit for a snowsuit and a boat for a one-horsepower steed.

The 21-year-old from Panorama, B.C., stuck to it despite the hazards, including a concussive crash a couple of years ago that sent his knee into his face and left him with a split chin.

“It just hurt for a bit, wasn’t much,” he said.

“It’s skiing. It’s an action sport, you get hurt. It’s kind of just the way things go.”

Carey was among more than a dozen skiers and snowboarders, turned sliders, for Banff’s SnowDays skijoring event, which drew throngs of people into a compressed area of the already geographically small tourist town.

“We’ve never seen anything like that before on even any of our busiest days,” said Mayor Corrie DiManno.

The town said it recorded nearly 24,000 vehicles entering the community last Saturday. DiManno said it hit an all-time record for vehicles entering the town in the hour before the skijoring started.

Parks Canada said vehicles were parked illegally and staff had to direct traffic through the Banff National Park gate to alleviate bottlenecks.

The ordeal has prompted Banff to review how it will host the event in the future, including looking at ticketing practices or changing its transportation strategy.

“I’m hopeful that we can find a way forward to host this event in a way that doesn’t put that type of strain and stress on our community again,” DiManno said.

The mass of people were there to see sliders like Carey, who skidded through a snow-constructed course on a portion of Banff’s busiest street and approached ramps from the rear of a hurrying horse.

“It’s awesome,” said Carey, whose leather jacket is crested with the motto “Air Born.”

“They’re kicking up snow, the crowds roaring, and you’re coming into a massive jump and, like, ready to do a flip or a big trick,” he said.

The competitive mogul skier typically sticks to downhill mountain slopes with the Canadian national team. He’s eyeing the 2030 Winter Olympic Games in France.

It was when his former ski coach, Michael Brush, had to pull out of the SnowDays event in 2023 and asked Carey to fill his spot that Carey tried his hand at skijoring.

“He’s like, ‘Man, this is your event. You love horses, you love skiing, you have to do this.’”

The sport, which originated in the Scandinavian region of Europe, has a history in the Rocky Mountains.

Black-and-white photos from the early to mid-1900s show winterized onlookers framing Lynx Street in Banff, where a lone skier follows tandem behind a horse.

Another shows two skiers being dragged side-by-side in the snowy slipstreams of two sprinting horses.

Sam Mitchell, a horse trainer from Millarville, Alta., looked to mainstream the sport with the founding of Skijor Canada in 2017. Her interest in it stemmed from an internal conflict among friends deciding between going skiing or going horseback-riding.

“Why not do both?” Mitchell said, sitting atop her horse, Ronin.

Mitchell said horse safety at skijoring events is a priority with the organization.

She said Ronin learned the acquired skill of pulling a human by using an inflatable dinosaur and a toboggan.

Mitchell recalled one of the trials with her friends, pushing her horse “full bore and looking over my shoulder and seeing my skier just taking snow in the teeth because he was grinning so hard.”

Skijor Canada calls it the fastest-growing winter sport in North America.

It’s a hard metric to measure, but the organization said Banff’s fifth SnowDays event last week sold out hotel rooms in town.

The two veins of onlookers on either side of Banff Avenue were often at a standstill, with people shuffling and shouldering to find a better view of the show. Many donned fur coats and Stetson hats, a conscious fashion agenda of Mitchell’s to frame as skijor style.

For Carey, the energy was electric. While his mogul circuit takes up most of his ski time, he said he’s considered amping up his skijoring participation.

“It’s always a good time. And I would love to carry on with it when I can after my mogul career, for sure,” Carey said.

Dayne Patterson, The Canadian Press