A Canadian in Sweden

Vuokatti

Well, I am finally in Vuokatti.

This small town hosts Finland's premiere nordic sports training facility, and is famous for its 2.4 km of indoor ski trails. I have wanted to come here ever since the ski tunnel (as it is commonly known) opened in 1998. I was expecting there to be a lot of national teams training here, but it turns out that most of them left to go to the glaciers of central Europe a week or two ago. In fact, there is only one team training here right now. L'equipe du Quebec. Talk about a small world. I walked into the dining hall after arriving and saw one of the athletes with a triathlon t-shirt bearing a Caisse Desjardins logo. Crazy, crazy. I took this photo of them as proof just before I joined them on a 1 hour run yesterday afternoon. Their coach, Luc Germain is 4th from the right. They are the future of skiing in Canada, and I will watch their season with interest from afar. Here is a link with more information about the team http://www.skiquebec.qc.ca/skifond/index2.htm


The tunnel was closed yesterday. It opens in 2 hours, and I plan on getting in a 3 hour ski before catching the bus to Kajaani this evening. From there I take the overnight sleeper train to Vaasa on the west coast. Tomorrow I am on the ferry across the Strait of Bothnia to Umeå.

posted by Jeff @ 11:51 PM