When Calgary hosted Canada's first Winter Games in 1988, the Olympic flame began its 88-day journey across Canada from St. John's historic Signal Hill. By the time the flame finally reached Calgary in February it had traveled more than 15,000 kilometres in cars, on snowmobile, via train, plane, on foot, and even with the aid of a dogsled. The flame ignited a magical 16 days of competition and a truly Canadian celebration.

Born in Ancienne Lorette, Québec, on 22 December 1969, Myriam Bédard became part of history in the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France. The 16th Winter Games marked the first time in the history of the Olympics that the biathlon was open to women, and when Bédard won a bronze medal in the 15-kilometre race, she became the first North American athlete ever to win an Olympic medal in a biathlon event. Four years later in Lillehammer, Norway, Bédard won gold in both the 7.5- and 15-kilometre event, becoming the first Canadian woman ever to win two Olympic gold medals, as well as the first North American athlete ever to win gold in an Olympic biathlon event.

At the 1984 Games, the 26-year old Gaetan Boucher carried the Canadian flag in Sarajevo for the opening of the 14th Winter Olympiad. When the Sarajevo Games closed, Canada's medal total stood at four. Boucher won three of them – two gold and a bronze.

The Canada 1 emblazoned on the hull of the bobsled spoke of how it and the four men who rocketed down a twisting tunnel of ice were one of a kind. When the 1964 Canadian Bobsled Team of Vic and John Emery, Peter Kirby and Doug Anakin won gold at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, they came from a country with no bobsled training facilities, no organizations and no tracks.

They are Footprints in the snow of Canadian sport.