March 15, 2012 (Ottawa-Gatineau) – A large part of Canadian cross-country ski history was destroyed Saturday, March 10, when the forty-year-old Nakkertok Ski Club cabin, dubbed Ostromhus, by their north trails in Val-des-Monts was burned to the ground by trespassers. The rest of us can only offer condolences for the 1,400 members of the club who collectively have thousands of wonderful memories of the cabin.

As Sue Holloway, whose family helped build the hand-hewn building, commented, “What? Why would you do this? It just makes no sense and it’s just so pointless and so sad.” The cabin had a new woodstove and an upper loft so up to twelve people could sleep there. “It was a beautiful building. It was a favourite place to stay over on special occasions, birthdays, and that sort of thing,” Holloway said. “We have wonderful memories of it.”

Each log had been stripped by hand and there was a collection of antique skis that also went up in smoke. Empty beer bottles and ATV tracks were found at the cabin and the smaller cabin next door had been broken into and trashed. It too was surrounded by beer bottles and ATV tracks. Nakkertok’s classic north trails are more rugged than their super-popular south trails. They also extend to a point that connects with the south trails creating a 25km less-traveled path.

Everything about the north trails and cabin remind us of the earlier days of cross-country skiing, before skating, before technologies that replaced everything wooden with synthetics. Holloway’s family and the Weber family were two founding members of Nakkertok who built the club up member by member and log by log with respect to the cabin. Thea Holloway and Meg Weber were two skiing pioneers when few women would have been allowed to hold leadership positions in sport.

The north trails were on land bought by Thea and Meg for the benefit of others, and in keeping in that tradition, Nakkertok always held Thea’s Race in the first week of March to commemorate International Women’s Day. While the classic race was open to everyone, the funds it brought to the club were given to a local women’s organization that desperately needed financial help. You could almost feel Thea and Meg carting the cash off to women less fortunate than themselves. I raced the exciting course in 2009 and remember gathering outside of the cabin for the awards afterwards. Prizes were handcrafted and painted pottery medals. Beautiful.

When I compare the compassion, commitment and generosity of the Nakkertok club, not only as hosts of Thea’s race, but as one of the most important influences in cross-country skiing in Canada to the senseless destruction of their beloved cabin and memories, I shudder. Let us hope such disrespect and hatefulness never happens again.