Last season Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé and the now-defunct Thunder Mountain High School were granted interim “club” status to compete as two Nordic ski teams within the Juneau School District, which allowed them to attend the Alaska School Activities Association State Nordic Ski Championships. Now sanctioned under the JSD as officially one team — the JDHS Crimson Bears Nordic Ski Team will have a full season with new uniforms, better access to all the school facilities and some budget help, but obstacles still remain.
“A big challenge that we have is not too dissimilar from what the hockey team faces here,” head coach Abby McAllister said. “We are the only Nordic ski team in our region so if we want to find competition outside of our team we have to travel. Because we are not located on the road system we can’t just hop in the big, 15-passenger van and drive a couple hours. Those ski races against, you know, five other high schools from a financial standpoint just places a slightly extra burden on our program.”
Financially, being a part of the JSD allows the team to offer stipends to head and assistant coaches, a combined total of roughly $5,800. The stipend cannot be used for any other expenses.
While some activities would put a heavier financial burden on the athlete the Nordic team, thanks to support from the nonprofit Juneau Nordic Ski Club, can offer participation in the program on a sliding scale.
“So whenever families feel comfortable paying, whether it’s zero dollars or up to about $800 we will accept their skier,” McAllister said. “We just ask that they do pay some sort of tuition to participate in the program. A lot of skiers just pay that $800 because the actual cost per skier for the season is closer to about $3,000, but we ask that people pay on that sliding scale based on what their family can afford.”
In this 2021 photo Nordic skiers participate in the Border to Border Ski Race along Salmon Creek. The event is modeled after the Rajalta Rajalle-Hiihto race across Finland and included Pioneer Road, Eaglecrest Nordic Lower Loop, Salmon Creek, Montana Creek and the Mendenhall Campground and Lake for a total of 46 kilometers. (Photo by Klas Stolpe)
The team also offers gear rentals for all skiers. A participant can rent both skate and classic gear — which includes two different sets of skis and different sets of poles — for $130 per skier for the entire season for both sets.
“And so we really try to make it affordable, but we will never deny anyone participation based on their inability to pay,” McAllister said.
Each athlete is asked to fundraise $400, which is less than some other sports.
“We think that is reasonable,” McAllister said. “We recognize that businesses around Juneau are very supportive of athletics and activities but we do not want to overburden them…we try to offset the rest of the cost with grants, a lot of asks from different entities.”
The caveat of being a JSD sport though is not lost on nor underappreciated by the team.
“It means we have access to school facilities in the same way other teams in the district do,” McAllister said. “It means we get staff support when it comes to making travel arrangements and are eligible for additional fundraising opportunities, in the same way other sports in the district are…We’re just really trying to make sure that we make things as easy as possible for those in administrative roles at the high school.”
“My assistant coach Ricky Worl and I really try to make sure that we dot our Is, cross our Ts, trying to make their jobs easy. Because not only are we a new sport but also we’re all one big school now and so some of the challenges that we’ve had to overcome is finding space for all of these sports teams to practice after school. Julie Herman (JSD athletic director) and Melissa Patterson (JSD administrative assistant) have been working really hard to find space for all of us…And there’s been, of course, compromise. We can’t always have it our way and we work with the other coaches and the other athletics that are in season to make sure that everybody is doing okay, that we’re helping things as smooth for them as best we can. That’s the big thing that we’re trying to do, just be really communicative.”
Two Nordic skiers follow a biker across Mendenhall Lake last winter. Nordic ski racing is one of the most energetically demanding sports because it involves technique, full body endurance and equipment care to perform at one’s best. (Photo by Klas Stolpe)
Nordic skiing is an expensive sport, similar to other competitive skiing endeavors, so relies heavily on fundraising to offset the financial burden on families as much as possible.
The team’s biggest fundraiser is CommuniSki — where the team asks for pledges from community members and businesses — and as a community of youth, middle and high school, skiers see how many kilometers they can ski in a day. That event happens this coming year on March 2.
In reality the team has been an established and growing ski program as a club in Juneau since 2011, and still serves close to 200 youth, middle school, high school and adult athletes.
“So we’re not a tiny program, but in the eyes of the school district we’re brand new,” McAllister said. “So we kind of just have to find our way and kind of get our foot in the door, so to speak, when it comes to understanding the workings of what it means to be a Juneau school district sport, a high school sport.”
The most obvious obstacle is climate related. Juneau athletes live in a rainforest. They rely on sea level training at Montana Creek, Mendenhall Lake Campground, Salmon Creek and Pioneer Road, and the higher ski trails at Eaglecrest.
“It’s not uncommon for us to have variable snow conditions or low snow conditions and it makes for a challenging training environment right out of the gate,” McAllister said.
Athletes run into a lack of diversity of trails they can train on, which makes it hard for coaches to help work on technique.
“When you don’t have good trails to ski, it’s hard to cultivate the varying techniques that you need to ski different types of terrain,” McAllister said. “The terrain that we face when we go up to places like Anchorage, Palmer, Kenai and Soldotna, where they have reliable snow and a diversity of trails and are able to really put in the time that it takes to work on technique and not have to worry about skiing through a puddle or skiing through a snow patch with rocks or skiing on ice like we do.”
The team has compensated with extended, preseason dry land and weight workouts until the first official practice on Nov. 2.
“We started doing dry land, but then we got some snow and so we started hiking to where the snow was,” McAllister said. “Our first real ski practice day was up in the bowl right below Black Bear chair and Ptarmigan. We put on running shoes and strapped skis on our back and put ski boots in our backpacks and hiked up Eaglecrest to the point where we were on snow and we skied on our first day and every day after that. On Monday, Wednesday and Saturdays, we hiked to snow and then we did dry land hill bounding, which is where you take poles and you basically ski mimic a bound up a hill with your poles. And then on our Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do strength, a lot of strength work…Nordic is arguably one of the most energetically demanding sports out there because it involves technique, full body endurance, and athletes must take proper care of equipment.”
Every Alaska high school with a Nordic ski team is allowed to send six female and six male skiers to the ASAA state championships, and compete in classic, skate and relay disciplines.
Classic skiing is done in ski tracks with skis parallel to each other and using a diagonal stride. Skate skiing involves skis moving in a V stride with the tips further apart than the tails. Both are done on groomed trails for competitive races.
Race distances vary from sprint races of 2-3 kilometers to longer 5-, 7.5- and 10-kilometer races. Races can be mass start or interval start, which means a racer leaves the start line every 15 seconds or every 30 seconds. Racers in an interval start are mostly racing against the clock, but those who catch others ahead are typically bolstered by the progress, knowing they have gained time on their competition.
JDHS will represent Region V, however, they have been allowed to ski in the Region III championships in Kenai for added competition.
“Last year it was in Soldotna and we had a blast,” McAllister said. “They have varsity and JV races at regionals so we are able to bring most of the team and it is a fun region to race in. It is very close to the climate that we’re used to down here in Juneau so it’s a good transition into state for us.”
The team also had a strong showing at state with the JDHS boys mixed technique relay placing 12th out of 24 teams, the JDHS girls ninth and the TMHS girls 17th. Out of 111 boys at state over the three-day disciplines, JDHS placed 26th (Finnegan Lamb), 44th (Leif St. Clair), 65th (Ferguson Wheeler) and 80th (Harrison Coutu). Of 116 girls, JDHS placed 34th (Kate Schwarting), 38th (Ida Meyer), 41st (Etta Eller), 48th (Kaia Mangaccat), 54th (Talia Aparezuk Schlosser), 80th Lua Mangaccat) and TMHS 89th (Della Mearig), 103rd (Shaylen Montgomery), 104th (Miranda Stichert) and 108th (Raegan Adams). Schwarting, Montgomery and Harry Guy were selected to the Good Sport Team.
The team returns over half of its team from last season, and a good number of sophomores and freshmen who came up through the Juneau Nordic program, as well as the cross-country running programs of JDHS and TMHS.
“There has been no animosity between TM kids coming over as we have always raced and trained as one team, similar to what wrestling, football and tennis have done,” McAllister said of the first season as one school. “We had a smaller cadre of skiers from Thunder Mountain last year. We didn’t have any guys on the team, but I believe we had almost six girls that we took to state from Thunder Mountain. And then we had four men racing from JD and six females racing for JD last year at state. So this year, it’s kind of exciting because we can field the full men and women’s team and for this next race going to Palmer I’m bringing 12 girls and eight guys.”
The 2024-25 JDHS Nordic Ski Team are:
Seniors: Corder Janes (Male), Ferguson Wheeler (M), Finnegan Lamb (M), Bailey Roguska (Female), Ida Meyer (F), Finley Hightower (M).
Juniors: Miranda Stichert (F), Zoë Lessard (F), Siena Farr (F), Grace Gazdig (F), Della Mearig (F), Lua Mangaccat (F).
Sophomores: Raegan Adams (F), Riley Soboleff (F), Kai Mangaccat (F), Adele Fanning (F).
Freshmen: Finnan Gahl Kelly (M), Gracie Snyder (F), Landon Adkins (M), Caleb Schane (M), Sunna Schane (F), Anderson Murray (M), Sigrid Eller (F), Emmett Hightower (M), Frisco John McGuire (M).
Assistant coach is Ricky Worl and volunteer coaches include Hannah Wilson, Merry Ellefson, Tim Blust, Alden Brudie, Julius Adolfsson, Melia Lu Trousil, Jenny Strumfeld and Mike Hekkers.
The team captains are Corder Janes, Ferguson Wheeler and Finnegan Lamb, Bailey Roguska, Zoë Lessard and Lua Mangaccat.
The Crimson Bears’ first meet of the season will be the Colony CHAOS at the Government Peak Recreation Area in Palmer, Dec. 13-14.
Other meets include the GPRA Relays at the Government Peak Rec Area in Palmer, Jan. 24-25; The High School Regionals in Kenai, Feb. 7-8; and the ASAA State Nordic Ski Championships at the Government Peak Rec. Area in Palmer, Feb. 20-22.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.
