Ode to the GT Snowracer

A good friend once mentioned to me the strangeness of how a city can change a person, and change priorities. Rossland has quietly adjusted my priorities to a point where last week I found myself going to the grocery store in my long-johns. If that weren't shocking enough, I'm told people also frequent the store in their ski boots and/or cross-country spandex. I remember a time, no-so-long-ago, where I felt like a slob going to the Wal-mart in sweatpants.

Rossland was built on the side of a mountain. My humble abode has an awesome approximation to the most things in town (groceries, the Legion, cheap beer), all within in a one-block radius. However, if I exit that magical circle (and sometimes I have to), I will be heading up or downhill. Couple that with the snowiness of winter and my newest priority in transportation is a GT Snowracer. In Rossland, "GT" is a verb.

Christmas. Early-to-mid 1990s. Santa brought me a white and blue NOMA GT Snowracer. Fully assemebled by the elves, Santa even left the cardboard GT box on the front steps of the house! The next year, my younger siblings also got GTs (purple and neon red-ish for Roxanne, black for Markus) and we had ourselves a fleet! Happy days for the Selkirk family! 
After our 1997 move to Medicine Hat, the GT use declined to a halt, mostly due to lack of a worth-while toboggan hill. Eventually, the GTs were quietly hauled off to the Sally-Ann. Fast-forward ten years and the number-one pick on my Christmas list is a NOMA GT Snowracer! Only NOMA doesn't make them anymore.

The lesson here, folks, is never get rid of anything.

I've scoured the internet, and it's really amazing how little information exists on GT Snowracers. The top Google results are Canadian Tire's current GT offering and Kijiji classified ads wanting or selling GTs. A quick glance through the Canadian Tire online reviews of the latest GT incarnation (not by NOMA) looked promising:

"The Canadian Tire ones are craptacular and will break if you look at them the wrong way."

"Useless junk: Nothing like they used to be, not like image on web, not like image on box. Low quality from start to finish. Need a hammer to make the parts fit, and a knife to trim off extra plastic. No chance it lasts one winter."

Promising, in that it looked like a guaranteed way to waste money and be disappointed at the same time! Something I hadn't done since I thought I was getting a really good deal on 99-cent deli ham at the local grocery store! The obvious solution was to go back in time and never get rid of my old GT. The second-best solution was to get my hands on a retro model of everyone's favourite three-ski toboggan. How would I do this? Would I post want-ads on the internet? Would I probe the plethora of online classifyieds? Probably both! But first, I would whine about it on facebook.

Status update: All I want for Christmas is a NOMA GT Snowracer!

In a moment that can only be considered a Christmas miracle, a friend on mine commented on my status saying that not only did he have a NOMA GT Snowracer, he had one stored away just waiting to be loved again! The GT was in snow-starved Medicine Hat and with a couple of phone calls and the help of my parents, the GT was mine.

Isn't she a beaut?

I am now going to present to you a mostly made-up history of GT Snowracers. Google failed in giving me any real information on them, and Wikipedia fails to even acknowledge NOMA as a current Canadian company. Here we go:

In the beginning, it was ninteen-ninty-something. Probably. Maybe 1991. NOMA, a company known chiefly for Christmas lights, decided to branch out into the cut-throat toboggan market, fiercely competing with these classic models:

Classic Toboggan. For maximum effect, wax the bottom of this baby.

Flying Saucers. The least-steerable, least turnable, and potentially most dangerous on this list.

Crazy Carpets. Light to carry, easy to slide off.

Inner tube of tractor tire.  A Selkirk classic. Pile seven people on one and zoom down the hill. Bonus points if you can bounce off the top person (your sister) with enough time left to run her over after she lands! Also, I don't know the guy in the picture, but I'm sure he has good stories to tell.

NOMA decided to revolutionize tobogganing by designing the well-known three-ski model, besting the entire toboggan industry. How? Steering. And neon. 

Now I present to you, the made-by-me, sponsored-by-google-image-search, visual GT history:

GT Classic. This is probably one of the first ones. Standard GT features: three plastic skis, steel frame, seat, brakes. Unique to this incarnation: Square ("aircraft syle") steering wheel, and colours that scream "I'm from the early nineties!"

GT ProRacer. GTing for grown ups and very large children. Bigger skis, bigger possibilities. Heavier to carry uphill. Classic black.

GT Stealth. Additional plastic bits have been added. I've always thought that if you wanted to be stealthy on snow, you might want to be riding something white...

It also comes with radar, buttons, and various meters/gauges!

Retractable pull cord!

Brett Hull GT. Same mold as the stealth, cool hockey colours. I'm also told there was a Wayne Gretzky model.

GT 2.0. This is when I got on board with the GT. New innovation: round steering wheel. Seat stripes are perpendicular to skis instead of at an angle.

After this, I'm not sure what happened. At some point, NOMA passed on the rights to the GT Snowracer. Which brings us to the 2011 options for GTs: Canadian Tire. There is also a European company (Stiga) that makes what I'm sure, is a higher quality version. High quality enough to stock and sell replacement parts!

What ever happened to NOMA? Well, they still sell Christmas lights. They've also branched out into thermostats, power cords, and light bulbs.

And whatever happened to me and my new GT? When it snows a lot, I join the Rossland GT gang on the streets of town, zooming all over the place in the amazing GT outfit of insulated coveralls and retro ski toque:

Markus and I doubled on the Stealth and he took this action shot:

 I may be older, but I'm pretty sure my GT face is still the same at it was 15 years ago.

The Christmas Gift Awards

Although this Christmas didn't produce a story like the Sun Peaks Tale, it did produce some memorable Christmas gifts, most of which were carefully collected from the thrift store. So instead of a summary of Christmas events, I present the 2010 Christmas Gift Awards:

Best Decorative Art: Still Life

A portrait of bread, milk, eggs, and wheat. I gave this to Sam, our downstairs roommate. Most of the time he eats two-minute noodles. Sometimes he adds an egg and calls it pad thai. I suggested he add peanut butter and call it satay. I thought he would like a picture of the foods he's not eating.

Most Useless Gift: VHS Rewinder

Remember VHS? Remember when these were useful? And now...so completely useless. Ponder your own mortality as you realize that in ten years, you could be rendered as completely useless and obsolete as this relic.

Best Used Gift: Turkey Carcass

Okay, so it wasn't a gift. But unwrapping it after Christmas made it feel like one. 

Most Useful: Goldfish and Syrup

1.36 kg of Goldfish Crackers and 2 L of maple syrup. Somebody's been to Costco!

Most Unfortunately Appropriate: Wall Plaque

My darling sister gave this to me. Little did she know, I had my own cat-related gift waiting for her:

Most Hilarious Gift: Dancing with Cats

I found this little gem on the internet. Stumbled on it one day, knew Roxanne would love it, and ordered a copy off ebay. This is a serious book. It was seriously published, and at one point someone bought this in a very serious way. It features actual cat owners dancing with their cats. The pictures are priceless, and at least three family members had tears rolling down cheeks as we flipped through the pages. The  I've prepared some excerpts for you, dear readers, to enjoy from the comfort of your own home. The captions really speak for themselves.

“Sometimes the energy is so powerful I worry about overstimulating my aura. At those levels, an unstable ethereal oscillation could collapse into an astral vortex and suck my spiritual reserves into a state of negative sub-matter.”

“I adopt the form of a bird because I want to feel vulnerable, like the naive little creature I once was...Zoot treats me like he would a bird. He leaps about and showers me with attention, when in reality he only wants one thing – to dominate, consume, and move on.”

“During their preliminary warm up, as they roll and rub together, the cat will frequently pay special attention to one area of Ivan’s body. It will even curl up and try to sleep on it, no matter how uncomfortable."

My favourite picture in the book. Really...where did they find these people?

Best Retro Gift: 50 Fun Ways to Internet

The title seems reasonable. Fifty fun ways to internet. Published in 1995. When the internet was a toddler. It was written post-netscape, and pre-internet explorer. As far as I can tell, it's about how to use the internet without a browser (wtf) and just by typing "commands" and scrolling through "directories". What fun! And believe it or not, none of the fifty ways are porn. 

The book uses many synonyms for the internet. There are (still) commonly used ones like "net", "web", and "cyberspace". Then there are these long-forgotten (never used?) gems: "electrosphere", "netland", and "cybersphere". Electrosphere! Hilarious.

Here are some more delightful excerpts:

"There's a lot more to the Net than chat lines and flaming. It's not all about kinky sex, space aliens and Melrose Place."

"If you're interested in informing your fellow netnauts about yourself, you've got to have a plan - or, more specifically, a .plan file." Netnauts! I'll be sure to use that gem more often. Other phrases for internet uses featured in this book: "infonauts", "netlanders", "net traveler", and "cyberians".

"If you want to cavort with furry animals in a virtual wonderland, telnet to 138.74.0.10 8888, the home of FurryMUCK...billed as 'the first anthropomorphic' MUD-like world...you can expect to join your fellow furries in building a virtual life with others who think it's cool to pretend they're furry and wild."

"Muli-User Dungeon (or Dimension), MUDs rank among the coolest, most inventive things in cyberspace...decide on your race (human, elf, dwarf or hobbit), and select various attributes for your character." Oh, that's good to know. The internet was spawning basement-dwelling losers as early as 1995! Before World of Warcraft!

Creepiest Christmas Decoration: Pedophile Bear

Look! It's a cute little Christmas bear. Kind of like a stocking! 

See, you just put treats in his overalls! Come here little children, just reach down the front of my pants...there's a treat for you! 

Oh look, there's even a back door option!

And that, my fellow netnauts, concludes the 2010 electrosphere version of the Christmas Gift Awards. If this hasn't inspired you to complete most of your Christmas/birthday shopping at your local thrift store, I'm not sure what will. Happy hunting!

A Merry Christmas Tale

This Christmas was my first Christmas dinner in two years. The story below is about why I didn’t have one last year.

Christmas. 2009. My ski bum sister was ski bumming at Sun Peaks Mountain Resort, just outside of Kamloops. Ski bums being the bottom feeders they are, neither my sister, nor Garth (her Aussie boyfriend), were able to get time off to come to Medicine Hat for the traditional sometimes white/sometimes brown Selkirk family Christmas. For the first time ever, we were going to celebrate Christmas somewhere else.

The plan: Load up the family Previa (sadly, no longer a family VW) on Christmas morning and make the 12-hour forced march of a drive to Sun Peaks with all the crucial elements of Christmas: presents (required), family members (optional), and booze (essential). Being good Canadians and having Thanksgiving spaced appropriately far enough away from Christmas, our Jesus-inspired dinner is always a turkey. Occasionally a ham is suggested, and even encouraged by one family member, but it’s always turkey for the win!

Christmas dinner is paramount to any Selkirk Christmas. Sure we spend time together – and sometimes we even get along – but the holiday is really about the Christmas meal. With my occasionally culinary challenged sister hosting Christmas, we all thought it best to cook a turkey the day before, and bring it with us to Sun Peaks. Roxanne would whip up the Christmas accompaniments, Christmas dinner would be served, and the day’s goal would be achieved!

The day began like every other Selkirk family vacation. We were on the road before dawn after a short stop at the (thankfully open) Tim Hortons. Markus was passed out before we were even out of the city. The family cooler was loaded with snacks, the ipods loaded with music, our hearts loaded with Christmas cheer.

At 6 pm Christmas Day, we rolled up to our mountain side hotel. At 6:10 we checked into our above-average room (housekeeper family discount!). At 6:12 the power went out. For the entire conglomerate of condos, shops, and hotels that constitutes the Sun Peaks village. Imagine, a magical collection of hospitality and dwellings on charming streets without signs, and thoughtfully designed so that when one person loses power, everyone does! What team spirit!

We drove around in the winter darkness with only the Previa headlights to guide us. The building signs and labels were swallowed by the darkness. No matter how many laps we did of the village while on the phone with Roxanne, our collective navigational genius failed us. Eventually my darling sister set out with a flashlight to hunt us down and save the final threads of our Christmas spirit.

The first hour of the power outage went smoothly.  We exchanged hugs and greetings, opened presents by candlelight, and admired our good planning to cook the turkey the day before while the rest of village scrambled to figure out what to do with a partially cooked turkey. The second hour went even smoother as we drank all the wine we brought and polished off the chips and cheezies. During the third hour, we warmed out souls to the soundtrack of Charlie Brown’s Christmas (thank you laptop battery), and warmed our throats with the majority of the bottle of maple whiskey. During the fourth hour of power outage, the family brain trust hurriedly agreed that the power was probably not coming on any time soon, and in the name of survival we needed to carve up the turkey! Carve we did, and it was turkey sandwiches all around for our candle-lit Christmas dinner.

Two hours later, as well lay our heads to rest, the power came back on. Sleep came easy knowing that we had not only celebrated Christmas, but had also bypassed the Boxing Day necessity of eating leftovers and therefore would have no reason to wake up the next morning at all. But wake up we did. The mountains were calling and the skis were freshly waxed. Throughout the day, everyone on the chair lift was trading stories about what they had to do to save (or purge) their Christmas turkey, and through an assortment of conversations we learned the cause of the Christmas outage. Naturally, it was the clever incompetence of one person. One individual made one driving error and drove into one pole. Outing the power for one village, but ruining the Christmas dinner of thousands!

There are several lessons to be learned from this Christmas tale. Firstly, in the Grinch-free 21^st century, it’s still possible for one individual to ruin Christmas. Secondly, never travel anywhere without a bottle of maple whiskey, and lastly, always cook your turkey in advance!