'It gives me freedom': Local organization giving people with disabilities chance to hit the slopes

Sit Skier Skylar Derin makes her way down Mission Ridge Wintersport Park with the help of her guide Joel Makan. (Donovan Maess/CTV News)

The Regina Ski Club is ensuring everyone has a chance to hit the slopes this winter.

“We offer various services that include sit skis or blind skiing assist guiding, cognitive items,” said guide Brent Waldo. “It’s for people that don’t normally get a chance to get outside and enjoy an activity like this.”

The Alpine Adapted Ski program has more than a dozen athletes with various disabilities. From spinal injuries to visual impairments or even amputations.

Skylar Derin lives with cerebral palsy.

In her daily life, she requires a wheelchair to be mobile. But because of a sit ski, she has been skiing for 13 years.

“It gives me so much freedom instead of just sitting in a wheelchair all the time,” Derin told CTV News.

With the assistance of her guide, Joel Makan, she’s able to use a chairlift and slide down the hill.

“She has a handlebar to control the sit ski,” Makan explained. “If she turns it left, the ski goes left. The same to go right.”

“And if she wants to break, she pulls back on the bar,” he added.

Emilie Lemoine is blind.

Through her guide, Daniel Petit, she says she’s been skiing for a decade.

“She can’t see anything, but she is able to feel the trail much better than I do,” Petit said.

Lemoine relies heavily on Petit while on the hill as he guides her down the slope.

“I have a microphone so I can talk to her,” Petit said. “I have to verbalize everything I see that she cannot. Whether that is somebody following or trees.”

Petit, Makan and Waldo all say being a guide is an opportunity to give back to a sport they enjoy dearly.

“Forty years ago, I started to ski. Somebody had to show it to me,” Petit said. “It’s nice being able to give my time and give back.”

“It gives people the ability to be independent,” Makan said. “And [for them] to get outside and slide on the snow and make relationships with different people they normally wouldn’t on a regular basis.”

“It’s a chance for us to be with families,” Waldo added. “But it’s given me a new lease on skiing. [Guiding] allowed me to come back into skiing in a big time and in a big way.”

The Alpine Adaptive Ski program trains every second Saturday at Mission Ridge Wintersport Park.

The club says they are always welcoming new athletes and guides for anyone who wants to try.

In March, they hold their year-end races as a way to fundraise for new equipment.