Zorra-Now-Winter2023

TOWNSHIP DEPARTMENT INFORMATION Zorra Now | Winter 2023 25 It was, certainly, not the most triumphant debut. But buoyed by the sense of exhilaration he felt as he eventually strided across the finish line, Pete Baldwin was hooked. “I got the (cross-country skiing) bug. Colin didn’t. But I did” Over the next 15 years, Pete – who took up the sport when he was in his late 40s – participated in dozens of long-distance ski races across North America. For a few consecutive years in the 1990s, he joined the Great American Ski Chase – a series of approximately 50-kilometre competitions that started in the late fall in New Hampshire, progressed through events in New York State and Michigan, and on to the largest of all Nordic skiing events in North America, the American Birkebeiner in Hayward, Wisconsin. “The Ski Chase always wrapped up its season out on the west coast in California but I never managed to make it out there,” he noted. He also qualified for and participated in World Master’s Championships races in Canmore, Alberta in 1995 and Lake Placid, New York in 2001. But before he could even consider participating in any of those high-level competitions, Baldwin needed a place to train. And, with limited options this far south in Ontario (Circle R Ranch near Delaware has maintained a nordic ski trail network for decades but the snow cover is typically unreliable; the next closest commercial operations with good groomed trails are near Orangeville, Collingwood, Owen Sound and Barrie), he decided the trail network he had already begun on his farm would be the ideal location. It happened that Baldwin took up the sport precisely when a transformation was underway – from the old-style “parallel stride” method of skiing to the newfangled “skating” approach. Inspired by Olympic athletes who shaved minutes off their finish times by kicking their feet diagonally to the side rather than back-and-forth in a set track, Nordic skiers around the world gradually moved towards requiring an entirely different type of groomed trail than what was needed in the past. At Wildwood, the groomed trail consisted of two parallel tracks. In some spots, these tracks passed through narrow stretches of tree-lined trail originally designed for walking. Skate-style skiing required wider trails over the entire distance of the loop. But it didn’t require the creation of two hard-packed parallel tracks. A well-packed – but not necessarily hard-packed – surface across the entire width of the path was the ideal surface. The organizers of the Wildwood Polecats, mainly Steve and Cobi Sauder, gradually slowed down in maintaining the trails at Wildwood for recreational and racing use because they were impractical for skating. The annual Loppet ceased to run for similar reasons. Pete Baldwin, who credits the Sauders for teaching him to ski in the newfangled style, approached them with his offer. They eagerly accepted, and were equally enthusiastic about helping him bring the dream into reality. The first “groomer” was a 50-horsepower, all-wheel-drive tractor driven backwards along the trail network with a loader bucket lowered strategically to pack down the snow. “The neighbours got a kick out of seeing me do that,” Baldwin remembers. They soon switched to “a good-sized log” towed behind the tractor, eventually with a few old tires dragging at the back to smooth out the trail behind the log. “That was a lot easier on the neck,” he admits. He remembers some mornings after heavy, wet snowfalls when the tractor got into trouble. “Yeah, we got stuck a few times. But one way or another, we always got unstuck.” Pete Baldwin at the entrance to the nordic skiing trail network on his 25th Line farm. The photo on the sign shows the three daughters of Steve and Cobi Sauder, fellow Zorra Township residents who helped maintain the trails.