Ottawa Somalis embrace skiing

Spending entire cold winter days outside in the snow has become hugely popular among Ottawa immigrants from hot, sunny Somalia, thanks to a successful community ski program.

"The kids fell in love with it and it took off and it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger," said Mohamed Islam, one of the organizers of the program run out of the Somali Centre for Family Services.

Grade 11 student Ahmed Abdullahi was one of the three dozen or so children, teens and young adults who hit the snowy slopes at Vorlage in Wakefield, Que., as part of the most recent outing last Friday.

"It's the most thrilling sport that I've ever tried in my life," he said, grinning from ear-to-ear. It was only his third time skiing, but was already speeding down steepest runs at Vorlage and nearby Mont-Cascades.

Abdullahi was lucky to make it on the yellow school bus that left the Ibn Batouta French Islamic school in Ottawa after Friday prayers.

Too popular

The ski program, which started three years ago, is now so popular that about 30 or 40 children who want to go are left behind each time, said Yusuf Mohamed, who first came up with the idea of organizing the trips. There isn't enough funding to bring everyone who wants to go.

Despite the program's success, at the beginning, nobody was excited about the idea, Islam said.

Mohamed admitted he thought it was going to be a hard sell.

"Our community, we don't do a lot of outdoor stuff in the wintertime because we came from a nice sunny place," he said.

But he added that local Somali-Canadians know their community suffers from a lot of health problems because of the sedentary, indoor lifestyle they adopt when they come to Canada.

"We figured, 'You know what? It's winter, there's not a lot going on for the kids, and we need them to be active.'"

He chose skiing after he himself tried it and got hooked.

"I loved it, so I went and I bought a season pass," he said.

Now, he and Islam teach basic ski skills like snowplow to dozens of children a year.

The program is targeted mainly at ages nine to 21, but some older young adults also participate. Last year, one parent even tried it and ended up loving it, Mohamed said.

"If we could get more parents out, I think it would be awesome," he said. "Living in Canada, winter's gonna be part of life and it's just a matter of adapting. And this is one of the best ways to do it."