Aviator and international figure skater, Colin Ratushniak, is La Ronge's first openly gay mayor
`March to the beat of your drum'
Shortly after Colin Ratushniak could walk, his family put him in skates and got him on the ice.
He developed a love of skating as he did laps in his father's home community of Lynn Lake, Man., and that passion gained momentum, sending him across dozens of countries as a professional figure skater.
Now Ratushniak, 35, is channelling that passion into creating change as La Ronge's first openly gay mayor.
Ratushniak's early skating experience was in ice hockey, but he started figure skating when he was 12 years old and living in Gillam — another northern Manitoba community — because there weren't enough community members to form a youth hockey team. It was a natural fit for Ratushniak, whose aunt was a figure-skating instructor.
Colin's mother, Wendy Ratushniak, recalls Colin doing some of his first figure skating moves in hockey skates. Even in his early days, Colin was quick to adapt.
Colin's coach eventually approached Wendy and suggested that Colin pursue figure skating more seriously. Colin was soon performing figure skating in the breaks between hockey periods.
Wendy says her son always cut his own path.
“He was independent, for sure,” she says. “He definitely made himself aware of his surroundings everywhere he was.”
That was apparent on family trips. When Colin was 13, the family flew to Toronto after Colin represented Manitoba in a national essay competition.
His essay, My Most Priceless Moment in Skating, described a meeting with his figure skating idol, Elvis Stojko, and explored Colin's bond with his grandfather.
As the family was strolling through Toronto, Colin was suddenly gone.
“We lost him in Toronto. Most people would panic, (but) I just said, `Oh he'll be fine,' ” Wendy said. “And I'm thinking, `Wow, I'm trusting my 13-year-old son.' ”
Colin returned to the hotel unharmed, telling his family he'd split off to explore the city and visit an outdoor TV news broadcast.
While in high school, Ratushniak was absorbed in figure skating and moved to Brandon, Man. for more coaching support.
Unfortunately, as his skills grew, the bullying from his peers worsened. Neither his skill on the ice nor his work ethic — Ratushniak was managing a Mcdonald's at age 16 — deterred hurtful comments.
“(Figure skating) wasn't seen as something traditional that a boy does. It definitely was challenging,” Ratushniak says.
“You got teased and bullied and you were called derogatory names all through your high school days because it just wasn't normal for a boy to be figure skating.”
When Ratushniak was 16 he moved to Calgary for more elite training and earned his pilot's license with an eye toward pursuing a career in aviation.
Then he auditioned for Disney on Ice. Growing up, Ratushniak and his family had seen the show every year when it stopped in Winnipeg and he'd always admired the skaters as they spun and jumped across the ice.
Disney on Ice hired Ratushniak and he jumped at the chance to perform with them. He set his dreams of piloting aside to skate for what he thought would be one year.
“I just thought `OK, you know what, I'll go be silly, I'll go do the circus life for a year. And then I'll get back to real life,' ” Ratushniak says. “That sort of didn't happen.”
Ratushniak moved to Florida and began rehearsals for an east coast tour — a period he describes as “sort of a like a dream.”
He went on to spend roughly five years with Disney on Ice. In the years after, his career evolved as he explored pairs skating, performing on cruise ships and internationally, including multiple seasons in Hong Kong.
Ratushniak performed in 65 countries across five continents and reached new technical milestones. By 2010, he performed his first backflip on ice and was soon preparing for a stint on reality television in the United Kingdom.
Ratushniak joined the program Dancing on Ice in 2011 and was paired with U.K. television presenter Laura Hamilton. His time on the show was “mean and crazy” as the two faced off against the competition in front of 12 million viewers, he said.
The pair made a close run for the program's top prize before finishing as runners-up and taking positions in the show's tour across the U.K.
By the time Ratushniak was finished, it had been almost 14 years since he left for Florida on what was supposed to be a one-year stint skating with Disney on Ice. That opportunity had blossomed into an international career he had never expected.
The next period of his life saw him transition into television production with Bell Media, working on CTV and shows like Big Brother. However, he wanted something more than a traditional day job and decided to return to the north, his roots and his passion for flying.
He arrived in La Ronge in 2019 to pursue his teenage dreams of being a pilot. Now, in his work for Rise Air, he flies a Twin Otter aircraft across the north.
He's also developed deep ties within the community and is part of the town's Pride organization.
The group used to consist of just a handful of members who would meet in the garage of La Ronge Coun. Jordan Mcphail. Now there are a couple dozen members.
When Ratushniak joined, the group was pushing for approval to raise a Pride Flag at the La Ronge town hall after council rejected a similar motion in 2017.
The year after that vote, La Ronge's chief administrative officer resigned, laying out scathing allegations that included council members using racist, homophobic and misogynist language. A statement from town councillors at the time called the statements “sensational.”
When the motion to raise the Pride Flag returned in town council in 2019, Ratushniak was there draped in a rainbow flag with roughly 50 supporters.
Mcphail called it one of the largest public shows of support for a council motion he's seen. Council voted 6-1 to raise the flag.
He says he considers the flag raising issue a “growing pain” for a town that has, nonetheless, “always been a welcoming community for people from all walks of life.”
Ratushniak thinks the vote was the moment that set him on the road to public office.
“It's such a small, but large, token for — let's say — a youth growing up in a town, exactly like I did. When you have no representation, you feel like an outsider. You feel like you don't belong and you don't feel like you're viable,” he said.
“Through all my travels and meeting so many incredible people with such open minds I just said, you know what? `Hell no.' ”
When the 2020 municipal election approached and the incumbent mayor opted not to run for re-election, Ratushniak decided to aim for the mayor's seat.
He won with 52 per cent of the vote, netting 406 of 774 votes casts between four candidates.
Returning to the north has brought him full circle to where he learned to skate and developed some of his lifelong passions. He thinks those experiences have prepared him for leading a community.
“I've always known that I was gay. … That was sort of setting me up to have extremely thick skin. Even if I fast forward 15, 20 years (from then) where I'm in a leadership role as mayor, you still have to march to the beat of your drum,” he says.
“You have to know where your morals lie.”