December 11, 2003 – November is the month where cross-country skiers from all over North America flock, sparrow-like, to Silver Star Mountain in British Columbia. Since Marty Hall blessed the Mountain as an early season training site for the National Ski Team some 16 years ago, Silver Star has extended its cross-country infrastructure, and its reputation as the place to be for early snow and competitions as grown apace. Silver Star was the venue for a most successful World Cup in 1991, a cooperative venture between the host club (at that time the North Okanagan Ski Club) and the Mountain Resort.  And more recently, Continental Cup or NorAm Canada Cup races on the American Thanksgiving weekend have drawn a large segment of the racing population from both north and south of the border to the extensive inter-connected trail systems of Sovereign Lake Nordic Club and Silver Star Mountain.

But this article is not about trails or races.  It is about an individual whose love of our sport and commitment to it have been a productive thread of continuity throughout this evolution.  Norm Crerar was once the General Manager for the Mountain. He bought into Marty Hall's vision and became a central partner in bringing it to fruition. Norm still runs a business in the village on the Mountain – a very different place from the days when it was essentially an alpine lift and a parking lot – but his focus has narrowed to developing the sport on a technical level. Within Silver Star's “Month of Nordic”, Norm operates a comprehensive program of ski camps designed to sharpen both technique and fitness, with an emphasis on masters, and he has been sufficiently successful that for many ardent skiers a week with Norm in November or early December is a fixture on their annual calendar.

Since the early days of Norm's involvement with Marty Hall and the NST, Norm as also been a steadfast supporter of the NST program.  Working with Marty, he developed an annual fundraiser which capitalized on the captive audience which was situated on the Mountain for camps and competitions during the American Thanksgiving weekend. The formula was simple – a little turkey to get people in the mood, a little mingling with the NST to focus their attention and then an auction to put a few dollars in the NST budget.  The formula has been working brilliantly and generating badly needed income for CCC's high performance program for 16 years.