CANMORE – The man with the plan is now on a wall in the hall.
Canmore’s Dale Swanson was inducted into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame as a sport builder earlier this month in Montreal.
Among dear friends and beloved family at the induction ceremony, Swanson said he felt like the luckiest guy in the world.
“My heart is full of gratitude and I sure appreciate this,” said Swanson. “I had a lot of help along the way and … my magnificent wife is definitely part of this the whole time. I feel very grateful and appreciative.”
Though he’s served in many roles in the cross-country skiing community for more than 35 years, perhaps a determined vision to lure elusive World Cup racing back to Canada is his most notable.
At a time when FIS organizers, the international governing body, were nervous and skeptical if an untested hosting crew from Canmore could handle the logistics of a major multi-day international sporting event, Swanson confidently pulled down his cowboy hat and said: “We were ready to rock.”
The son of a petroleum engineer in Houston’s oil and gas industry, Swanson’s family moved to Calgary in the 1950s after his dad was transferred to Alberta for six years before being transferred back to Texas.
“We had a great old time in Calgary for a few years,” said Swanson, who is a dual citizen. “I always loved this area and I came back as an adult in 1980 and started doing recreational cross-country skiing and a little bit of downhill, but I had a knee injury so I figured it was easier on my body than downhill.”
Peter Lougheed Provincial Park in Kananaskis was a favourite spot for Swanson to connect with nature and frozen trails.
When the 1988 Olympics in Calgary were announced, Swanson started to get more seriously involved in the sport by volunteering, administration duties and race officiating because the cross-country and biathlon events were taking place in Canmore.
“We started to train for the ‘88 Olympics, so volunteers had to learn all the rules and how ski races were run in those days,” said Swanson.
“I’ve been involved as an official and then a race organizer and promoter ever since.”
Before the Games, Swanson recalls there being some cross-country skiing races in the area, but not that many.
In 1991, Swanson and partner John Gallagher opened Trail Sports, a cross-country ski and mountain bike specialist shop at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
It fit into what Swanson ultimately wanted to accomplish with the sport in Canada by raising its public profile and getting more people involved.
The cross-country enthusiast even opened up his home in summertime to a future national ski team star named Beckie Scott, who would later go on to win gold and silver medals at the 2002 and 2006 Winter Games.
On social media, Scott described Swanson as “the original visionary and driving force” behind bringing World Cups back to Canada in the 2000s.
“I became friends with her and she would ask me, ‘Why can’t we get the World Cup back here?’” said Swanson. “She was tired of spending all that time in Europe just living out of a suitcase and going from place-to-place, so that was a big motivator for me.
“And it just occurred to me that we have the facility and we still have a lot of people in the area that are good race officials, top level ones and others that help us and all that.”
In 2003, Swanson co-founded the Alberta World Cup Society (AWCS), a non-profit organization that strives to host World Cup cross-country skiing events. He said there were many people who “did some really heavy lifting” to make the first event a reality, including Robert Hogg, Michael Verdiel, Ken Hewitt and Dave McMurtry, among others.
Though big challenges were in the way of the team to get FIS World Cups away from its European stronghold.
“They were proud of their traditions in Europe and they weren’t all that keen to travel all the way to North America,” said Swanson.
However, AWCS had a nearby ally in the heads over at Sovereign Lake Nordic Club in Vernon, British Columbia, who also wanted to host a World Cup event.
“So what we ended up with was a plan … We wouldn’t have just one venue, but have a weekend in Sovereign Lake and then a weekend in Canmore.”
At the Vernon and Canmore World Cups, Scott won two individual golds and two silvers.
Swanson’s daughter, Shayla, would also get World Cup starts at the Canadian races.
“FIS was very happy, our sponsors were happy, we had beautiful weather, so it all really worked great,” said Swanson.
Since then, the FIS Cross-Country World Cup has returned to Canmore seven times.
“Dale’s passion for the sport, his dedication to the skiing community, and his tireless efforts to grow cross-country skiing in Alberta and beyond are nothing short of remarkable,” said John Reeves, president of the AWCS, in a media release. “His legacy is deeply woven into the fabric of the Alberta World Cup Society, and his induction into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame is a well-deserved recognition of his contributions.”
Cowboy Hats on the Podium
The Calgary Stampede was an early sponsor of AWCS. During the Canmore World Cup event in December 2005, the organizers of the annual festival held a mini rodeo in between races and broadcasted it to the European audience.
“They had real animals, real cowboys and real rodeo clowns,” said Swanson. “It was just a hoot.”
The cowboy hats, especially with the Europeans, became a big hit, and were given out to the podium winners. The iconic brimmed hat has become a staple in Alberta World Cup race podiums.
