Q+A | Yukon's Gary Bailie on cross-country skiing, and being named to Sport Yukon's hall of fame

Gary Bailie says it's "pretty amazing" that he'll be inducted into Sport Yukon's hall of fame this month, for his contributions to cross-country skiing in the territory.

"It's not something I ever thought of. It's just the way that I live," he said.

Bailie started skiing young, when he was recruited by the late Father Jean-Marie Mouchet to be part of the Territorial Experimental Ski Training (TEST) program.

Later, Bailie would go on to create the Kwanlin Koyotes youth ski program in Whitehorse, spending many hours grooming trails in the McIntyre subdivision, and showing young people the joy of staying active through the long winter months.

Bailie spoke to CBC Yukon's Airplay guest host George Maratos about his life-long love of skiing, and his nomination to the Sport Yukon hall of fame.  

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

For people who don't know about Father Mouchet and the TEST program, can you paint a picture of what that time was like for you?

His concept was to develop character in young children through the discipline of cross-country skiing. You know, every sport is a discipline — you're just working hard and you're dedicated and stuff. And, you know, we all got into it and it was just a lot of fun. It was very challenging at first, but when I finally got it, it was like, "wow." It just elevated everything for me. The confidence it gives you... you know, the sport is so great and it does these things for you, but also, I did better at school, I just wanted to do good at everything. So it really elevated me as a person.

So you took to it right away, and you knew that this was a sport you enjoyed?

Not really. It was difficult for me, like I had trouble getting it. My situation was, I grew quite a bit and was a little bit unco-ordinated because of that. And I couldn't quite get it and it was frustrating for me. But I just didn't give up. I just kept doing it. And so the first big lesson is just, don't give up, right?

Finally one day everything just clicked and it was magical. You know, all of a sudden, "wow, like this is great." And it just gave me even more confidence to work even harder.

Working with Father [Mouchet] was really challenging. You know, he really worked on our technique and skiing really well, which to this day I always work on — especially in the beginning of the season, because it's that technique that gets you moving well. 

And then of course, there was the training part of it, which was just putting in the time and skiing, and it just builds your fitness. Winters are so long, so it was just a great thing to do.

And you became quite the skier. I know you're a humble person, but you went pretty far with the sport.