OUR COUNTRY

The figure-skating great revisits his happy childhood in the farming country near Newmarket, Ont.

Figure-skating great Elvis Stojko revisits his happy childhood in the country near Newmarket, Ont.

The first 10 years of my life were spent on a 50-acre hobby farm in Queensville, Ont., north of Newmarket. I had a very happy childhood, full of imagination and exploration. When you’re little, 50 acres is huge; I spent most of my free time biking, climbing trees, and crawling through the barn with my friends, making forts or jumping from the rafters into giant bales of hay.

Even though it was a hobby farm, there was a lot of work to do. We had horses, dairy cows, pigs, rabbits, geese, chickens and a huge organic garden. I was too little to lift the hay bales, so I got to drive the truck.

The farmhouse was already 100 years old when my parents bought it, before I was born. There was a little cubby under the stairs off the family room, and that was my hideout. I would hang out in there and draw on the inside of the door with crayon, and when I was seven, I signed my name.

We moved to Richmond Hill when I was nine because I was skating in the Toronto Cricket Club by then and my competitive career was taking off, but all the subsequent owners of the house have left my signature in the cubby, which is pretty cool.

I’ve travelled the world and I was fortunate to have lived in Mexico for 12 years, but my wife and I recently purchased 100 acres in the Kawartha Lakes area, and it really feels like coming home. I can stand in the middle of the forest and close my eyes and listen to the wind in the trees, and just feel that beautiful exhaustion that comes from being outside all day.