About Freeheelers United

About Freeheelers United

Freeheelers United (FHU) is a localy owned and operated not-for-profit ski school committed to promoting the sport of Telemark Skiing by providing high quality instruction by certified CANSI instructors at a reasonable price. FHU also hosts a series of events each year including Demo Days, our Annual TeleFest and CANSI certification courses.

 

Mission

Our Mission is to be the largest provider of high quality Telemark skiing instruction to outdoor enthusiasts in the National Capital Region with reasonably priced courses offered by professionaly trained, certified and highly energetic instructors.

Vision

Our vision is to

  1. Have a strong and vibrant Telemark skiing community in the National Capital Region
  2. Host an annual festival that draws skiers from a wide geographic region
  3. Develop a roster of strong vetran Telemark instructors while developing instructors of the future
  4. Have access to a strong and competitive Telemark equipment retail market
  5. Have a series of Telemark Ski races offered in the region

History:

Freeheelers United (FHU) has been around in various forms since 2003. The group started by organizing a one time Telemark Ski Festival at Mont Ste Marie. The festival was a great success for a small grass roots operation.

In 2005 we set up our first web site sponsored by zon.ca. Zon is run by a fellow temark skier and gratefully donated web hosting services for our first couple of season. Zon continues to provide web hosting services at a discounted rate. Since our early days the website has seen many evolutions. in 2012 we launched the newset incarnation of our website at freeheelers.net.

FHU started offering CANSI certified courses in 2005 and worked closely with Montain Equipment Co-Op in Ottawa to develop a network of instructors and a clientell of students. Camp Fortune and Mont Ste. Marie, two local ski hills have supported Freeheelers by allowing us to teach courses at their facilities. By 2007 we had the beginnings of the ecosystem required for the sport of Telemark to continue its growth and popularity trend.

The Canadian Association of Nordic Ski Instructors (CANSI) has provided lots of encouragement to FHU to continue its development. A special thanks goes out to Glenn Lee of Ski Telemark who has been key in helping the development of local instructors for the National Capital Region to become self sufficient. We now have a good selection of Level I instructors and a few Level II instructors to offer courses in the region.

In 2011, Mountain Equipment Co-op in Ottawa had to discontinue the rental of Telemark skis due to limited space and ga eneral decline in the Canadian market for Telemark Skiing gear. For MEC their focused turned to support the resurgence of the Alpine Touring market. Meanwhile, Kunstadt Sports, a local retailer decided to cary a limited rental fleet to try out the Telemark market. According to a telemark equipment manufacturer product representative (product rep), Ottawa was one of the few cities where MEC discontinued Telemark rental but saw little uptake from local retailers. Many other cities saw an increase of 3-4 retailers move into the Telemark market where MEC left.

In 2012 Kunstadt Sports decided to increase its rental fleet by adding to the previous years inventory. We here at Freeheelers United look forward ot continue working with Kunstadt to increase the use of their rental fleet to support gorwth in the future.