Whitehorse volunteers recognized by Cross-Country Canada

Volunteers make Whitehorse’s big events happen.

Volunteers make Whitehorse’s big events happen.

Claude Chabot and Joan Stanton know this.

And for their efforts, the two Whitehorse residents were jointly honoured by Cross Country Canada as its Volunteers of the Year.

Chabot and Stanton first got news of their nominations last June, during the Cross Country Canada annual general meeting, held in Newfoundland.

“I was thrilled when I found out we’d been nominated, quite frankly,” said Chabot, who was recently named executive director for the Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club.

“It was probably the culmination of a bunch of years of work that we did moving towards the nationals. We thought that we had a really successful event and we did what we wanted to do, which was have something fun for athletes and volunteers.

We knew we exhausted everybody,” he laughed, “but that’s O.K., they still had fun.”

Chabot also spent two weeks earlier this year volunteering as an official at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

The 2010 Haywood Ski Nationals – an event that received rave reviews from athletes nationwide – contributed to the two local ski club members winning the award.

The national event attracted more than 400 elite skiers from across the country – including Olympic gold medalist Chandra Crawford – for eight days of intense competition, and generated more than $750,000 economically for the territory. The event was more than two years in the making and kept over 200 volunteers busy.

“Sometimes it’s just that people need to sort of jump in and take on these kinds of tasks, and it’s amazing how they come together once you commit to doing it,”

Stanton said. “People are so willing to volunteer that they come forward to help. It’s a great community for that, everyone pitches in,” she added.

Chabot and Stanton also had major roles in the 2007 Canada Winter Games, an event that Chabot said drew some 3,000 volunteers.

Finding volunteers in Whitehorse is usually the least of the committee’s worries while preparing for a major event, Chabot said.

“It’s got a phenomenal history of volunteerism, a tradition of volunteering and participation. Absolutely, we don’t have trouble getting volunteers for anything,” he said.

“It’s fun, it’s fascinating to watch the elite athletes in action, they’re just a good group of people to work with, both the athletes and the other volunteers. I mean, none of us would do it if we didn’t enjoy it.”

Local organizers have decided to put a serious bid for a major event every two or three years.

Prior to the Canada Games, Whitehorse hosted the Northwestel Westerns in 2006, when Stanton headed the event committee and Chabot was the chief of competition for the races (the same roles both had for the 2010 nationals).

That event acted as a primer for the Canada Games, and after 2007, the local ski club and the city knew Whitehorse could host the nationals.

“Nationals was a natural progression (after the Canada Games), but it took probably a year to figure out how we would do it, put the bid package together, make the bid, start lining everybody up,” Chabot said.

“As a club as well we had a goal that we should do something major every few years. There’s a fine balance: you want to do major events often enough to keep your hand in and keep everybody’s skills honed; but on the other hand, it’s a massive amount of work and you don’t want to burn out all your poor volunteers.”

Stanton first volunteered throughout the community, and eventually put her hand in to organize the 2006 Westerns.

Two of her kids, 26-year-old Graham Nishikawa, former member of the national team, and 21-year-old Emily Nishikawa, who used to be on the junior national team, are currently training in Canmore, Alta., at the Alberta World Cup Academy.

Stanton said she tended to go where her children went while they were growing up in Whitehorse.

“My kids have been involved in skiing so long that I really felt that I should give back to the sport in a way that I could,” she said. “And organizing seems to be something that I enjoy doing,” she laughed. “So I was happy to get involved in these events for those reasons.”

Originally a competitive runner based in Ontario, Chabot first started volunteering in the Yukon at the Arctic Winter Games.

“It’s part of the culture,” he said. “You race but you also help organize races, because otherwise they don’t happen.”