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Lighting the way

The lights were bright at the new Rickbeil Light Park at Otway Nordic Centre but they were no match for the brilliant sunshine reflecting off the muddy slope on a beautiful fall afternoon.
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Ken Rickbeil stands in front of the sign bearing his family's name on Saturday at the Otway Nordic Centre. A ceremony marking the unvieling of the lights, which were funded by the Rickbeil family, was held with many family members in attendance. Citizen Photo by James Doyle November 7, 2015

The lights were bright at the new Rickbeil Light Park at Otway Nordic Centre but they were no match for the brilliant sunshine reflecting off the muddy slope on a beautiful fall afternoon.

Ken Rickbeil of Calgary, whose $143,000 donation made it possible for the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club to install lights on a 4.5-kilometre section of its Race Maze trails, visited his old stomping grounds Saturday for the public unveiling of his family's legacy lighting project.

Rickbeil was blown away by what the club, with help from the 2015 Canada Winter Games Society, has done to build a network of trails for cross-country skiing, biathlon, snow shoeing, running and mountain biking on the western edge of the city off Otway Road.

"This facility is totally amazing for me, to see what's been accomplished," said Rickbeil.

"With this facility now we have the opportunity to produce world-class athletes. In our country we have lots of snow and cold but one thing that's lacking is the hours on skis and this (lighting) will help not only the high-class athletes but families and university (students) who can come out here now and ski at night, where they couldn't do that before."

Rickbeil moved to Calgary in 1976 and hadn't seen the Otway facility until he came back two years ago with friend Cal Benson. The lighting project sprung from that visit.

Rickbeil's passion for adrenaline sports was already starting to blossom by the time he moved to Prince George with his family from Princeton. Born in Regina, he inherited his love for nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country skiing) from his parents, Vera and Mel, who had their four boys involved in just about every sport invented, whether it was hockey, lacrosse, curling, baseball, golf, cross-country skiing or ski jumping.

Growing up next to Ken and Neil McIntosh in Prince George on Gillett Street, Rickbeil and his brother Jim became exceptional lacrosse players. In the wintertime, all the Rickbeil brothers - Ken, Jim, Ian and Doug - went skiing. They did their dryland raining in John Pettersen's basement and used to run up and down the hills of Tabor Mountain on the Hickory Wing Ski Club trails to get ready for the racing season.

To practice their jumps, coach Ray Smith, Ian and Ken and their dad Mel joined a volunteer crew to build a 30-metre ski jump on the old Okanagan Helicopters site just off Otway Road. By 1968, Ken was a junior Canadian champion in nordic combined and the following year he finished seventh at the Canadian ski jumping championships at Tabor Mountain. At the height of his 10-year competitive career he made the national A ski jumping team in 1971 and was an alternate on the seven-member Canadian team for the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.

At the light project unveiling, Caledonia club president Kevin Pettersen brought out a pair of jumping skis still sporting a fluorescent pink peace sign sticker. Rickbeil used those skis to fly when he was with the national jumping team.

Mike Morris, MLA for Prince George Mackenzie, acting mayor Albert Koehler and newly-elected Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty attended Saturday's ceremony along with Pete and Scott Sherba of Westcana Electric, who donated light poles for the project.

"The value we got for our dollars here is amazing - there's more to it than the bid price, there's a bit of heart in this project," said Rickbeil, 64, who once worked for Westcana as an electrician before he started Western Electric Ltd. in Calgary.

Caledonia club biathlete Logan Sherba, 16, says he's looking forward to skiing on the trails at night. All that's missing is snow.

"It's going to be great, we'll be able to ski without headlamps and be able to see more and have great training runs," said Sherba. "I think it will be a great attraction for everyone to get out here."

Jim Burbee, Caledonia's director of competitions, envisions Otway as a nordic training centre for young athletes on the verge of making national teams. Burbee says the snowy winter climate and long ski season, the variety of trails, and the options for post-secondary students at UNBC and the College of New Caledonia (not available at existing nordic centres in Canmore or Whistler) make Prince George ideal as a long-term training destination. The new lighting, on challenging race trails which meet FIS racing standards, provides another essential building block.

"Club skiers won't have to drop out of skiing to go to university," said Burbee. "It's just a natural. We've got the college, the university, the sport school with PacificSport and we have the club here. Everything is in the city. At this point, all we need is coaches.

"I just hope we can keep it rolling because this is the platform for developing really high-level athletes. It's the place to come to learn to be a racer."