Bjorger Pettersen, a member of the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame for his work as Canada's first full-time cross-country ski coach, died Dec. 29 at his home in Okotoks, Alta., after a nearly two-decade battle with sarcoidosis, a chronic disease that causes inflammation of the lungs. He was 76.
Pettersen's legacy includes leaving Prince George in the mid-1960s for Inuvik, NWT, where he quickly transformed a group of Indigenous kids from the Mackenzie Delta region into Olympic-calibre athletes. Two of his skiers, twin sisters Sharon and Shirley Firth of the Gwich'in First Nation, were on the national women's cross-country team for 17 years, competing in four consecutive Winter Olympics.
"You know what makes me smile?" Pettersen told reporter Peter Graves in a 2010 SkiTrax.com article. "Well, seven of nine skiers on the 1972 Canadian Olympic team were from the little town of Inuvik, a town of about 1,500 people. It made me very proud."
Pettersen's roots in Prince George can be traced back to 1958 when he moved with his family from Kitimat at age 16. Skiing was a family passion they carried with them from Sarpsborg, Norway, when they immigrated to Camrose, Alta., five years earlier. The Pettersens became active members of the Sons of Norway Ski Club and cut their own cross-country trails closer to their home on Harper Street through stretches of pine forest in what is now the residential area west of Spruceland Mall.
Recognizing the need to grow the sport and not be so exclusive, Pettersen and Harry Andersen suggested the club change its name to Hickory Wing Ski Club. The club developed the trails at Tabor Mountain which became a beacon for ski racers in the region. Tabor was the site of the 1965 biathlon and cross-country national championships and the Centennial Races in 1967 that brought international racers to Prince George.
"Hickory Wing became a real iconic development in Canadian cross-country skiing because we became the main centre in Canada to produce cross-country skiers," said Pettersen, in an interview with The Citizen a few months before his death. "It all started in Prince George after we sort of laid the roots to the development we had here in Canada."
Ski racing was Pettersen's life until an injury cut short his career just before he was about to represent Canada in the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. He was named to the Canadian Olympic training squad in 1962 and returned to Norway to train but had to stop entirely when he nearly ruptured his Achilles tendon, an overuse injury he attributed to too much running on hard surfaces.
Unable to ski, he returned to Prince George and became a coach, ordering as many training manuals as he could find through his contacts in Norway.
He attended the annual fall convention of the Canadian Ski Association and was elected chairman and head coach of the CSA's Western Division. When Pettersen took over as coach, just two of the 28 national team skiers were from the Western Division. By 1966, 22 of the 28 team members came from his program.
To help share the workload, Pettersen got his father John and younger brother Rolf involved and by 1965 Hickory Wing was the top club racing team in Canada. Rolf went on to become an 11-time Canadian champion who competed in the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France. All three Pettersens are now in the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame.
Pettersen moved to Inuvik in 1965, hired as head coach and manager of the TEST (Territorial Experimental Ski Training) program. Working with local athletes, most of whom had never skied before, Pettersen's impact was immediate. Skiing on a lit track during long winters on the flat Arctic tundra, often enduring cold that hit the minus-40s, within six months he molded the 14-year-old Firth twins into North American champions. Five years later, as part of the country's first Olympic women's ski team in 1972 in Sapporo, they joined TEST protges Fred Kelly, Roger Allen and Roseanne Allen as the first Aboriginal athletes to represent Canada at the Olympics.
Pettersen's ability to attract world-calibre racers to the Top of the World ski championships in Inuvik and his success in developing so many quality skiers from the Arctic who regularly posted top-10 results against the best Europeans made his name prominent in international ski circles. In 1969, on the way back from their European tour Pettersen and the national team were guests of honour at a dinner at Rideau Gate hosted by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
Pettersen left Inuvik that year to become Canada's first national cross-country ski coach, a job he held until 1975. During his tenure he started the national team training centre and established the Yellowhead Ski Club in McBride in 1972, using money he'd made from his ski equipment business, Viking Ski Imports, to build the lodge. He lived in McBride on his own cattle ranch until 1986, when he was hired by the Calgary Olympic Committee.
As Canada's Federation International Ski (FIS) representative, a position he held for 27 years, Pettersen was the primary architect of the Canmore Nordic Centre built for the 1988 Calgary Olympics and he was venue co-ordinator/manager for the cross-country events at the Games. His trail design included steep undulating pitches which reflected the new free technique racing style.
"We were trying to push the boundaries in the big world and trying to innovate," he said. "You know, what works in Scandinavia is one thing, but we needed something bigger to drive the sport in North America."
Canmore is now the home of the national biathlon and cross-country teams and is widely recognized as one of the top nordic ski facilities in North America.
One of only a handful of lifetime members of the FIS Cross-Country Committee, Pettersen served as technical director at three Olympic competitions - Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980, Albertville, France, in 1992 and in his native Norway at Lillehammer in 1994.
Pettersen's first brush with the Olympics came in 1960 when he skipped school in Prince George to attend the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif., to learn more about the sport. The cross-country events had a low profile at the Games, which gave Pettersen unfettered access to FIS officials and their contacts and that spurred his entrepreneurial spirit.
Recognizing how hard it was for Canadians to buy quality ski equipment he tapped into the European suppliers and at age 18 began importing the gear himself, based in North Vancouver. Within seven years, with Pettersen's brother-in-law Bob Gaasbeek from Prince George running the business in Montreal, Viking Ski Imports was boasting annual sales of $8 million and that allowed Pettersen to donate equipment to the national team. He sold the business in 1980 after three snowless winters in main markets of Eastern Canada.
In November 2017, Pettersen released a 435-page self-published book, A CrossCountry Ski Story, which took two-and-a-half years for him to write. Illustrated with photos throughout the pages, the book offers detailed descriptions of the races he attended and how he honed his career as an athlete, coach, official and entrepreneur. Included are chapters written by former national team coaches Dave Wood, Roger Allen, Jack Sasseville, Anton Scheier and current head coach Louis Bouchard. The book is available in Prince George at Books and Company.
Pettersen moved to Okotoks to set up his ranch after the 1988 Olympics. Writing the book gave him a chance to reflect on his nearly seven decades as a contributor and innovator in nordic skiing in Canada.
"When I first kicked my skis on in this country, we were an unorganized, backwoods sport," he wrote.
"Today, we are world beaters and medal winners! I love my family and cross-country skiing! Go Canada Go!"
A celebration of Pettersen's life will be held today at 2 p.m. at the Okotoks Community Centre.
