The Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club has shattered its previous membership record it announced on Jan. 21. The club currently has 2,083 season-pass holders, up more than 40 per cent than the previous record, set in 2020, of 1,400 members.

Club manager Benjamin Poudou attributed the rise in numbers to several factors.

“There are few different possibilities,” said Poudou. “The big thing is people can’t go away for the winter so they decided to start skiing or start skiing again.

“I think some people are scared to take a membership somewhere else but there is some assurance that if they spend 2-300 dollars on a ski pass they can use it. It is better to be outside than inside.”

The club also saw “big growth” in day pass sales compared to previous years - almost more than 25 per cent compared to the same time last year. The club’s programs also now serve more than 800 young athletes aged 4-18.

The abundance of snow Whitehorse received at the beginning of November also contributed to the increase of memberships and day passes purchased, said Poudou.

“We had that huge snowfall in November,” said Poudou. “Usually, people don’t buy memberships until there is snow.

We’ve had an amazing season and it didn’t get warm enough for too long to make the conditions icy.”

Because of the healthy dumping of snow, the club is grooming the trails more than ever before. So far this year, they have groomed over 300 hours with the Pisten Bully groomer, twice as much compared to last year.

Poudou said the club is lucky to have the snow because it mitigated the loss of the snowmobiles stolen on Dec. 4. Poudou said there still hasn’t been any word on the two stolen Arctic Cat, 2017, Bearcat 7000s.

Skiing often begins in October, put Poudou said that is rock-skiing and not recommended for beginners. The snow allowed the club to open 10 days earlier with conditions being beginner-friendly immediately.

The numbers of membership and day passes shot up but Poudou said the club has been seeing consistent growth, even before the pandemic hit.

“I’ve been here since 2017-18,” said Poudou. “Each year it has been growing and it would have probably continued to grow a bit.”

When the world is no longer under COVID-19 restrictions, Poudou said he expects the numbers to decrease slightly.

“If we are back to normal next year I’d be surprised if we were back to 2,000 members,” he said. “But we are hoping for about 1,600.”

Membership sales can still be on the rise when people begin purchasing spring passes.

Poudou said the club is fortunately well prepared for its recent success.

Thanks to funding from the Community Development Fund, the club now has a strategic plan to guide its work from 2020-2022.

The plan is based on input from 400 members and stakeholders. In addition to continuing to improve services for recreational and competitive skiers, some key actions of the club are:

Developing a climate change plan;

Improving land tenure;

Working more closely with partners and stakeholders;

Reaching out to new members and diversifying membership; and

Improving club governance