Calgary water ski lake makes splash
Calgary water-ski produce champions, Danyael Halprin writes.
Hockey, alpine sports and the rodeo are typically what come to mind when thinking about sports in Calgary. What is surprisingly not well known is that our city is home to a vibrant and family-centric water-skiing community that is the training base for some of the best water-skiers in the world.
Just 10 kilometres south of the city are the two man-made, private lakes where they ski but the lakes are secluded and thus a well-kept secret. The parallel lakes are approximately 640 metres long by 60 metres wide and sit at the base of a ridge next to the Bow River. Through a unique relationship with the landowners, who wish to remain anonymous and not disclose the lake’s name and exact location, the private and non-profit Predator Bay Water Ski Club has exclusive access to this facility.
The history of PBWSC began in the early 1990s when a group of Calgary water-skiing enthusiasts once water-skied in a small bay in Ghost Lake, 18 kilometres west of Cochrane. They named the bay and their club Predator Bay because of a hidden rock shelf in the water at the end of the lake. Boats that didn’t know its whereabouts got banged up pretty good.
“The first time we set up a slalom course there, we hit it and so we joked that it was the bay that bites,” says Dan Velcic, one of the original members of the group and longtime former president of PBWSC.
It was on one of these outings in 1994 when the skiers were approached by the landowner. “If I were to dig a lake for water-skiing,” he asked, “would you form a waterski club there?”
In addition to the land on the ridge along the Bow River Valley, he owned land at the bottom of the valley that was basically marshland. An underground spring of water flowed through the land making it wet, rendering it useless for farming and dreaming of a different fate for itself.
The skiers answered the landowner’s proposal with a resounding, Yes! The first lake was dug in 1996 and the skiers came. The second lake was completed in 2006. It’s a picturesque setting created with ideal conditions for waterskiing. The towering spruce trees surrounding the lake in the valley protect it from the wind, making for calm waters. The rock shores were engineered in such a way that when a wave comes in, it breaks and dissipates in the spaces between the rocks thus eliminating any rollback.
Today, PBWSC has 75 member- ships, with Mathieu Storrier as its president. (Many of its members came through Rockyview Water Ski Club, the original club that started on Chestermere Lake, which has a long history and was the training ground for such national champions as Kim Reid.) This oasis in the foothills has hosted the provincials two times and will again this month, the nationals three times, and the world championships in 2009.
Velcic and his wife, Suzanne, were very involved in bringing the Worlds to Calgary. From 2005-06, Suzanne worked on the committee with Water Ski and Wakeboard Canada that established Rip ‘n Ride, a standardized national water sports skill development program for entry-level youth much like what the Nancy Greene pro-
Predator Bay has allowed more athletes to get to a level where they can compete internationally. It’s a spinoff of being exposed to some of the best coaches and athletes in the world.
gram is to downhill skiing.
“Predator Bay has allowed more athletes to get to a level where they can compete internationally,” says Dan.
“It’s a spinoff of being exposed to some of the best coaches and athletes in the world that we bring here to compete and train us.”
Calgary’s Stephen Neveu, the 2013 under-21 world and national champion in slalom, credits the club with empowering him to see his potential.
“They were incredibly supportive, always asking me about my water- skiing plans, how school was going and there was always someone willing to drive me through the course when I wanted to ski after school,” says the Rundle graduate.
Neveu, who has skied in many parts of the United States as a member of Arizona State University’s water-ski team, praises the esthetics of the Calgary lake, especially compared to the uninteresting scenery around the manmade lakes that are in swamps in the U.S.
The past two summers, the club held the MasterCraft Pro Water Ski Shootout, a phenomenal event that attracted the world’s top skiers in the sport’s three main events of slalom, jump and trick jump. The 2014 Pro Shootout was a memorial tribute to Don Llewellyn, one of the founding fathers of water-skiing in Alberta.
He and Bruce Dodd were instrumental in bringing the nationals to the private ski lake that Dodd built in his cow pasture in Innisfail, Alta., more than 40 years ago. The Llewellyn and Dodd families are two huge names in the history of water-skiing in the province and their children continue to add chapters to the story.
Don’s sons, Jaret and Kreg Llewellyn, are highly decorated water-skiers who skied onto the international scene in the 1980s.
They hold multiple world records as well as world, Pan American, and U.S. Open championships. (Since water-skiing is not an Olympic event the Pan American Games are considered its equal.) Jaret won two silver medals at the recent Pan Am Games in Toronto.
Jaret’s son Dorien, 20, is a Red Bull-sponsored waterskier who’s won the European Championships and the Austrian Championships, among other accomplishments. Ryan Dodd, 30, of Olds, is one of the best jumpers in the world, winning gold at the Toronto Pan Am Games.
The majority of PBWSC’s water-skiers are recreational and ski in Calgary during the summer and cross-train in the winter. Due to the short and thus cherished water-skiing season here — May 1 to mid- September — those club members of world-class stature have relocated to warmer climes in the U.S. to stay competitive.
For example, Aliya McTavish, 17, is a competitive slalom and trick skier who’s been training with PBWSC since 2006. A Rundle College graduate like Neveu, she moved to Orlando, Fla., last year to attend Grade 11 at The Crenshaw School to train year round. (Crenshaw is a private college prep school geared toward athletes and entertainers; Justin Timberlake and gymnast Melanie Sinclair are among its former students.)
It was McTavish who presented the plan and all the logistics to her parents. “We decided as a family to do this and it was the strangest thing, leaving my 15-yearold daughter on the steps of her school and heading back to Calgary without her,” said mom Gisela.
It proved to be an excellent decision. A junior member of the Canadian Developmental Team, McTavish is ranked third in slalom in Canada, and eighth among junior women in the world. She is sponsored by O’Brien.
McTavish returned to Calgary this past school year to graduate with her classmates. In the fall she will attend Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., on an academic scholarship where she will join the varsity water ski team.
“You have Stephen Neveu, you have Geneva Roach, you have Aliya and there’s a ton of others training down south,” says Gisela about the talent coming out of Calgary. “I don’t know if Canadians are just so hardcore and tough but there’s something about the athletes from Calgary that’s shocking the U.S. waterskiers.”
Accolades and championships aside, the heart of the story is that there is thriving, tight-knit community of water-skiers who have a love for the sport and this lake. Their time on the water is dear, a chance to weave through the course, sun on their face, spray at their side under a big blue Alberta sky.
“Twenty years ago we were just excited to have a place to ski and never did any of us ever see it becoming one of the nicest places to ski in the world,” says Velcic.