By Catherine Buckie, Ski Martock APL (catherine.buckie@skipatrol.ca)
Women make up a huge part of the Canadian Ski Patrol at Ski Martock in Nova Scotia. So much so that when I separated my elbow during a fall in the terrain park, almost everyone who treated me was a woman – the first on scene, the toboggan handler, the 911 caller, and patrollers just there for support. Men were there too, there just weren’t as many.
The women who patrol at Martock are a strong, cohesive group. When the call came to do a photo shoot for International Women’s Day, nine women showed up filled with excitement. They spent a half day showing off their patrol skills and having a blast.
Photo credit: David Savoie
This moved our elder statesman patroller, Doug MacLean, to suggest an article about his women colleagues for this newsletter. MacLean has been with the Canadian Ski Patrol at Martock for more than six decades. He is a man of few words, but he described the women on the Martock Patrol as having “strength and positivity.”
He was impressed by a poem one of our female patrollers wrote about being on the patrol. This is an excerpt from The Strength of the Carabiner by Jillian Sabadash:
Like a carabiner clipped on a climber’s line,
Clipped in strong makes us align,
Our patrol stands firm and fast,
First on snow and last to pass.
…
Click of metal, snap of care
We splint, sling, and patch in frosty air.
Shout out to women who patrol with great pride,
And to the guys who stand by our side!
It was Tineke Murray’s idea to do the photo shoot. She took video of Martock women patrollers in action. “I joined ski patrol because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something I never thought I was capable of,” she said. “And along the way I’ve found lifelong friendships and met incredible women who are challenging themselves and proving the same thing every day.”
Murray has a lot of woman patrollers to choose as friends. Ski Martock has 33 women patrollers. That’s almost 40 per cent of the entire patrol.
It’s that large number of women patrollers that leads Sarah De Coutere to think that articles about women patrollers aren’t necessary. “The lovely thing about patrolling at Martock is that [women on patrol] often IS an everyday occurrence. We are fortunate to have such a strong female presence … and I feel so lucky to be one of them.”
One of our longest-serving women patrollers doesn’t even ski or snowboard. Jo-Leigh MacPhee, a teacher, joined the patrol 15 years ago to learn first aid so she could use it in her day job. “Perhaps it is the balance of strong women patrollers or perhaps it is the genuine sense of welcome that the patrol embodies, but I was accepted and embraced by the Martock Patrol family,” she said.
Everyone loves when MacPhee is in the hut. She is a stellar first aider who looks after patients so that the skiing and snowboarding patrollers can get back on the hill.
“I didn’t fit the mold so they stretched the mold for me, and I will always be grateful to be a part of that,” MacPhee said.
Patroller Kelly Dewhurst called being on the patrol “a rewarding experience. The entire team – veterans and newcomers alike – builds you up and trusts
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