Wisconsin Notes:
-The Great Skate was Great
This year, yet again, The Great Skate lived up to it’s name. This race has grown and gotten bigger and better every year. Yet the genesis of this event is quintessentially Winnipeg and November Project; every year Derek and some of his friends would look at the weather, decide it was liable to be the coldest night of the year, and go out and skate the river trail with some wee cheeky brews and call it the Great Skate. It was rogue, it was rough, it laughed in the face of winter and it was slapping a little bit of hype on a seemingly ordinary event. When Derek became a leader and brought this tradition to the November Project Winnipeg, the event took on a life of it’s own. The Great Skate has become an entire day event that celebrates our city, our river, our winter, our tribe and our fortitude. It would be impossible to adequately describe the day, so the remainder of this blog will largely be photos of the magic and thank you’s to the people who helped us make it happen.
The day of the race it was COLD, like -37 with wind chill cold. And yet, y’all showed up, 200 beautiful people bundled up, strapped on their skates and come to race with us on the frozen river.
We gathered on the river, shuffled around in the cold, I shouted some words, Derek bounced a little bounce and we were off to the races!
And we raced!
Results we’re as follows:
Top Females:
1. Nicole
2. Yvette
3. Eastyn
Top Males:
1. Murray
2. Jordie
3. Florian
There were families skating, friends skating, dogs pulling, Californian’s being pushed on chairs, Irishmen struggling to stay up right and great fun was had by all!
Afterwards we congregated in the Forks for some burgs and brews and warm laughs with friends. We awarded prizes and commiserated over frozen toes and fingers.
Now the thank you’s:
We want to start by thanking the good people at the North Face and The Prairie Summit Shop for sponsoring this event and helping us bring the whole race to the next level. They supplied us with race bibs, start and finish flags, awesome prizes and 200 FREE toques! Like what?! I know! They are awesome and we appreciate them.
Next we want to thank our incredible volunteers for all of their hard work on the day of the race, that all allowed everything to flow smoothly, while Derek and I were running around yelling at people through mega-phones, racing our hearts out and just trying to add to the all around hype. Connie, Tom, Thom, Hilary, Hali, Marina, Tony, Mary and Bob thank you so much for your hard work, we really appreciate it.
Thank you to Colin yet again for his next level talent and for making us a dope event poster. Derek and I wanted to create some cool finisher medals for all of y’all, thank you everyone who helped us out, to Dennis for his wood shop, Brian for his design, and Jason for his laser cutter. How cool is it that we can think up an idea, throw it out to the tribe and you guys just make it happen for us?! Y’all rock, thank you!
Thank you to the guest coleaders from SF, Edmonton, Washington and Regina for coming in to Winnipeg to experience this event, and to talk all things NP with us, and thank you to Rick and Tom for opening your homes to our guests and being excellent hosts.
Thank you to Wild House Media for their incredible video, that fully captures the magic of the day and to Janelle at Alice and Flore for all of the amazing photos that she took for us. You both helped capture the spirit of the day, you’re awesome!
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who helped or raced or hyped we appreciate you all so much, thank you for showing up. We’ll be back next year, bigger and better than ever!
Mega(n)- phone Cora of the House Hunter, First of her Name, Queen Of the Great Skate, Kahleesi Of Frozen toes and fingers, Breaker of World Records and Mother Of Hype
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