Aroostook County, p. 3

By Ron Bergin

Nordic skiing is not the only focus of the Maine Winter Sports Center. The organization also owns two community-based alpine ski areas: Big Rock in Mars Hill and Black Mountain in Rumford, and helps support Quoggy Jo in Presque Isle.

But events were to be the pivotal ingredient to Aroostook County’s new economic model. Planners hoped that staging major events and leveraging these world-class facilities would attract media coverage from around the world and bring hard cash spending resulting from the influx of competitors, spectators and recreational skiers. They would capitalize on the support of an enthusiastic corps of community volunteers and early, dependable and long-lasting snow.

And the proof, as they say is in the pudding. MWSC venues have staged numerous high-level regional, national and international competitions over the past 10 years, including two world championships – the 2005 IPU World Paralympic Nordic Championships and the 2006 Biathlon Junior World Championships. The venues have also hosted the IBU Biathlon World Cup, three Biathlon North American Championships, Biathlon Olympic Trials, five U.S. Biathlon Championships and two cross country SuperTour finals and U.S. Distance National Championships.

The Four Seasons Lodge in northern Maine.

In addition to these national and international events, the venues have been constantly busy with state and regional events, such as the Aroostook Youth Ski Festival and Women’s Ski Day, which bring out hundreds of skiers and many newcomers to the trails.

When planners looked to the Maine Winter Sports Center for the economic revival of Aroostook County in northern Maine, they turned to an unusual launching pad – biathlon.

Pretty much an “under-the-radar” sport in this country, biathlon is hugely popular in Europe and is, in fact, the most popular winter sport on television, with as many as 20 million viewers and upwards of 100,000 spectators at the venues. The bottom line was that World Cup biathlon came with a guaranteed television audience in Europe and would spread the word about Aroostook County to the world. In a bonus development, the Outdoor Life Network (now Versus) picked up the 2004 World Cup event for U.S. broadcast. This four-day event was estimated to have generated $5.2 million in economic impact.

Officials at the 10th Mountain Center had developments well underway to host a 2009 biathlon World Cup, then the IBU announced that this event would not be on its 2009-2010 calendar. The venue will, however, host a Biathlon festival in 2009, to include the U.S. Biathlon Championships and the North

American Cup. According to event organizers, the International Biathlon Union executive committee will propose a calendar for 2010-2011 that includes Fort Kent.

“This news was expected, but it is still disappointing,” said Nancy Thibodeau, chair of the Fort Kent World Cup Organizing Committee. “We are all very happy to hear that the IBU is planning to include Fort Kent in the future.”

“The athletes and European TV are both very supportive of Fort Kent events, so I think everyone was excited to see that Fort Kent was being proposed for the very next cycle,” said Andy Shepard, president of the Maine Winter Sports Center.

MWSC also created Healthy Hometowns, an award-winning initiative to help communities across Maine address the growing obesity crisis. The program uses skiing, as well as other year-round activities, to get thousands of kids involved with healthy, outdoor active lifestyles. Cross Country Skier featured Healthy Hometowns in its November 2005 issue.

The MWSC is headed up by President and CEO Andy Shephard, a former executive at L.L. Bean who was instrumental in helping craft the economic model on which MWSC is based. Eileen Carey is program director, overseeing the many MWSC events and developmental programs. Carey succeeded John Farra, who recently became the Nordic director of the U.S. Ski Team. Program directors Will Sweetser, Gary Colliander and Mark Shea oversee cross country, biathlon and community development, respectively, with the support of development coaches Melissa York, Austin Ross and Mike Yeo.

The notion of trying to revitalize an area through the use of cross country skiing is a unique approach to economic development. Of course, no one method of investment can bring an area back from the economic brink. But the capital infusion to the area, the creation of a large and diverse Nordic skiing infrastructure, and the coalescence of a large and passionate Nordic skiing community working in tandem with non-skiing volunteers and business people will have a lasting impact.

The Maine Winter Sports Center and the visionaries who conceived and helped execute this plan and, especially, the Libra Foundation are to be commended for first having the vision and then having the guts to try to bring it off. It has been almost 10 years since the MWSC and Libra Foundation first partnered to help re-establish skiing as a way of life in northern Maine and, from my observations, it seems to be working.