ost older Canadians can remember her smiling face splashed across the front pages of newspapers and appearing on the nightly news. She appeared to be the girl next door, once described as "everyone's favorite babysitter". But this was a single dimension played up by the media, and Nancy Greene was much more dynamic than that. Those who knew her well saw the aggressive and distinctly competitive side to her and more appropriately nicknamed her "The Tiger".

Nancy Greene grew up on skis, but pursued the sport mainly for pleasure. Nothing about skiing triggered any desire in her to compete. But 1958 changed that attitude when the Canadian Junior championships were being held in her hometown of Rossland, BC. Her sister Liz, along with many other girls from her area, were picked to compete. Nancy was not asked to participate. The night before the first race two of the main competitors were injured and only then did she get a phone call to enter as a substitute. It wasn't the most flattering of offers, but sibling rivalry pushed her to enter: she placed third in the slalom. That triumphant day gave her the confidence to go on and she entered into the Olympics just two years later. There she met Canadian skier Anne Heggtveits, and was inspired to understand the dedication and discipline needed in competitive skiing.

Sponsorship was scarce in the early 60s, and Greene had an annoying habit of making spectacular spills right when she seemed on the verge of a breakthrough. She kicked off this trend in the '66 World Championships in Chile. After completing a great run, she tumbled only 45 metres from the finish-line, losing helmet, poles, and skis, and flying 70 km/hr in a triple cartwheel right before smashing into the retaining wall. Her next great blunder was just one year later when she lost control and flew through the gate backwards!

"you must go fast, but you must not go so fast that you lose control...I learned that I could come up with better results...if I held myself slightly in check, if I really concentrated on a course instead of almost blindly assaulting it."

There was nothing half-hearted about Greene's skiing. When she lost, it was disastrous; but when she won, her runs were phenomenal. In the 1967 World Championship Greene entered the second last run trailing behind by 21 points. But she streaked down the mountain, through 56 gates in 46.16 seconds, placing herself at a close second. She then went on to beat out her chief rival by seven hundredths of a second!

Her striking ability to pull up from behind is what won her both the 67 and 68 World championship. And it was this unpredictable determination that stopped the hearts of Canadian fans, and won her the title of outstanding female athlete two years in a row.

ong before skiing became a popular sport, snow-shoeing was the pastime middle-class Canadians chose when they decided to embrace winter instead of shutting it out. The origins of the Montréal snow-shoe club trace back to the 1840s, a time when the 'club' was literally 12 friends gathering to trek through the countryside on Sunday afternoons. But by 1843 there were so many members that they had to formalize the gatherings. With the election of their first club president, and the races that followed, the group became one of the first athletic clubs in North America, and snow-shoeing became one of Canadian's most popular recreational activities, lasting well into the 1930s.

Snow-shoeing brought an interesting new dynamic into the world of sports. The natives had been using snow-shoes both functionally and competitively for years before it became a mainstream activity. As the sport became more competitive, it became clear that the native participants were- based both on their experience and their equipment-superior athletes. This division in skill became a major point of contention, with the natives refusing to sell their equipment to any of the white competitors. This is probably one reason why some of the middle-class folks abandoned the sport; they hoped to find better standing in another sport.

And so the focus shifted to skiing. In the 1900s organized skiing was extremely limited in Western Canada, and in the East it was only popular with European immigrants who had brought their equipment from overseas. At that time, though, most skiing was purely recreational. It only became popular as a sport with the decline of more conventional winter activities.

At the end of the 19th century, the sport took off in the form of ski jumping. Large crowds watched jumpers fling themselves down mountainsides in the Rockies, down large wooden trestles on the Prairies, down Mont Royal in the heart of Montréal, and down the cliffs in Ottawa. In Western Canada, it was one of Canada's most popular winter spectator sports until the 30s.

But while the West was content with this straightforward technique, the focus in the East was shifting to more daring versions of the sport: alpine skiing [downhill, giant slalom, and slalom]. Open hills in the vicinity of most major cities were frequented by skiers who packed the snow covered mountains, climbing the hill sideways in the morning, and spending the day practicing their Telemark and Christiania turns.

In the early 30s there were a number of developments that changed the face of skiing forever. The most significant was the introduction of the rope tow. This first version was extremely rudimentary, comprised of a 4-cylinder Dodge engine rigged to power the rope and pull people up the hill. This simple mechanism allowed Canadian skiers to concentrate on the new downhill techniques without spending time and effort climbing back up. Within a few years, rope tows and downhill ski runs sprung up all over North America.

While Canada never really excelled in competition, a few things happened that enhanced our position in the sport. In 1958 Lucille Wheeler won the World Championships in both downhill and giant slalom - a totally unexpected victory. This generated a lot of public interest in the sport, and the next year Canada sent a national team to compete in Europe. Since then, Canada has had a tradition of internationally competitive skiers, but they were all women. The international standing of Canadian males skiers was slower to develop, but when it did, these men provided daring assaults on the toughest, iciest courses. Four in particular - Dave Irwin, Dave Murray, Steve Podborski, and Ken Read - drew international attention and were quickly labeled the "Crazy Canucks."

The popularity of skiing continues to strengthen. It is more common than not for a Canadian to own ski equipment. As a nation, we've embraced it as both sport and recreation. We've mastered it and created new events within the sport; specifically, freestyle and acrobatic. It is interesting to note, though, that with all the advancements of technique, technology and equipment in skiing, one of the most popular forms remains cross-country, a form of skiing that reflects the true essence of the original sport.