My Skiing Journey
I grew up cross-country skiing in Ontario. After school, my friend Cathy and I would strap on our skis and head out onto the golf course behind our street. I had exactly one cross-country ski lesson, on a frozen lake at a winter camp in Algonquin Park.
In adulthood, I moved to Calgary to pursue my masters in neuroscience. Now closer to the Rocky Mountains, I rediscovered my love of cross-country skiing with my husband, but mostly in the backcountry.
Life twisted and turned, and one day our children joined a local ski club. This was my introduction to the world of competitive cross-country skiing – an important milestone in my life.
I had never seen people classic ski like that and I knew nothing about skate skiing. I was immediately hooked and wanted to learn everything I could.
Over the years I went to hundreds of races, gradually developing an eye for technique and slowly decoding the art of competition-style cross-country skiing.
Eventually I got into ski instruction and coaching, which I’ve been doing for about 15 years. I enjoy working with both kids and adults.
Nordic Ski Lab’s Origin
I co-founded Nordic Ski Lab in 2016, along my son, Kai Lukowiak, who raced back in the day and is now a data scientist, and Chris Jeffries. (Initially the website was XC Ski Nation.)
Chris Jeffries is a former member of the Canadian National Team. He retired after competing at the Turin Olympics, coached university-aged athletes for many years, and is currently the High Performance Director of Nordiq Canada, our national sport organization.
Chris provided important technical leadership in our early years. He’s no longer officially with Nordic Ski Lab, but his legacy lives on and you’ll see him in many of our videos.
Our first demo athletes were the Olympians, Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt and Ivan Babikov. Olivia still skis competitively and has worked for Nordic Ski Lab since our inception. You’ll see her beautiful skiing in the majority of our videos.
Over the years the Nordic Ski Lab team expanded; we now showcase the talents of many top athletes. I lean heavily on these athletes to stay current and continue learning.
There are so many ways to enjoy the sport of cross-country skiing. You can call what we teach at Nordic Ski Lab “race technique”, “competition-style” or “performance skiing”. It’s not the only way to ski for fun, but it’s my favourite.
If you like learning with videos and want to ski with the efficient and graceful techniques used by the pros, Nordic Ski Lab will probably be a good fit for you.
Have more questions? Check out the FAQs .
Happy Skiing!
Kim
