Meet Gold Medal Paraskiier Natalie Wilkie, Canada's Disability Hall of Fame

Joeita Gupta:
I am Joeita Gupta, and this is The Pulse. They train just as hard, play just as hard, and want to win just as badly. Gone are the days when athletes with disabilities were perceived as less than their able-bodied counterparts. Today, paralympic athletes and games attract wide audiences enthralled by the level of competitiveness and superb sportsmanship. We've come a long way from thinking about parasport as a form of disability rehabilitation. People with disabilities spend their entire lives devoted to sport, pushing themselves, going beyond their personal best. And while it's well and good to be impressed and even inspired by our favourite athletes, para-athletes have blown the perceptions of people with disabilities as somehow being optics of pity, right out of the water. Today we discuss parasport and determination. It's time to put your finger on the pulse.
Hello and welcome to The Pulse on AMI Audio. Thanks again for joining me and we are really excited to be talking to you as we have been over the last couple of weeks about the Canada Disability Hall of Fame and some of the people being honoured at this year's luncheon. You've already heard in the last two episodes from Chantel Benoit and Michelle Stillwell. Today we'll be meeting a final person being honoured at the Canada Disability Hall of Fame. I want to remind you before we get into talking about our guest, that if you have not as yet done so, please don't forget to like or subscribe to this channel so that you can be notified about future episodes and get more content. We cover all kinds of disability issues, not just parasport, but we talk about research, but health care, education, you name it.
If you have an interest and a passion for disability rights and you are keen on following the latest news, research and developments on disability issues, do remember to subscribe to this channel. My guest today is Natalie Wilkie. Natalie Wilkie is a Canadian Paralympic cross-country skier. She was the youngest member of Team Canada at the 2018 Paralympic Games. She won gold, silver, and bronze medals. Wilkie has since gone on to have a celebrated career. Natalie Wilkie is the recipient of the King Clancy Award and podium check at the 30th Canada Disability Hall of Fame luncheon. Natalie joins me today from her hotel room. Hello, Natalie, how are you? So good to have you on the program.

Natalie Wilkie:
Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm honoured to be on your show.

Joeita Gupta:
Natalie, tell me a little bit about what it means to you to be the recipient of the King Clancy Award. I mean, you won a lot of medals, you have a lot of accolades to your name, but what does this particular award mean to you?

Natalie Wilkie:
I mean, I'm honoured to be given this King Clancy Award. It means a lot to me just because it's in recognition of... Well, spreading awareness of people with disabilities. I mean, the Canadian Foundation for physically disabled persons has a goal to spread awareness of the achievements of disabled persons, which I think is so important in creating a bit more of a spotlight on disability, well, people with disabilities, their achievements. I mean, in a world where able-bodied sports really takes precedence, I think it's super important to have a bit more equality in that sense.

Joeita Gupta:
Now you have really made a name for yourself with cross-country skiing. How did you get your start?

Natalie Wilkie:
Well, I started cross-country skiing, I mean, basically, as soon as I could walk because I grew up a few kilometres from my local ski hill. So, it was just something my family did on the weekends, just like, well, my mom had four kids and we were all crazy hyper all the time. So, cross-country skiing was a great way for us to get rid of some of that energy. So, I did the Jack Rabbit program as a kid and then moved up into the race team eventually when I was ready and started racing from there. And that's kind of where I got my start.

Joeita Gupta:
And did you realize at the time that this was something you were passionate about and that you were good enough to maybe someday, one day compete internationally and represent your country? Was that on the horizon for you or did you just get your start in cross-country skiing as many people do as something fun that you did with the rest of your family?

Natalie Wilkie:
Honestly, I used to hate skiing. When I was a toddler the only way my mom could get me to go out for a ski was to bribe me with snacks or maybe a hot chocolate at the end. I don't know how many tantrums I had in a snowbank because I didn't want to be there. But I think once I joined the Jack Rabbit program and was able to ski with my friends and my leader of my program always brought cookies in her backpack, and I think that was the big deciding factor on me beginning to like skiing. Yeah, it wasn't until later when I started training and racing more that I really began to enjoy it and had dreams of bigger competitions.

Joeita Gupta:
When you started skiing, you started at the age of four, you were participating in able-bodied skiing. There was an accident in high school which changed the course of your life to an extent. Tell us a little bit about the accident and what happened to you.

Natalie Wilkie:
Yeah, so I was 15 years old when I had my accident, and up until then I had already been racing able-bodied competitions, just mainly local competitions within my home province of BC. And I had gone to nationals actually a couple of months before my accident and that was a nationwide, well, all of Canada. That was a big competition and I didn't do particularly well, but it was kind of a turning point for me because I was watching all these Olympians and national team athletes who were competing there with me, and that kind of inspired me like, "Wow, this would be something really cool to do." But then a few months later I was in wood shop class and I think it was the last week of school and I had finished all my projects and I was working on something extra and unfortunately, the project I was working on, the machines weren't set up for it because it wasn't one of the usual projects that all the students were doing.
And so unfortunately the machine kicked back when I was planting a piece of wood and I wasn't using a push stick. And so my hand kind of went into the machine and got stuck. So, I pushed the emergency stop button as soon as I could. And yeah, I was stuck in the machine for an hour while my teacher and a couple of other people were trying to take it apart. And then I was airlifted to the nearest hospital where I had surgery immediately. Unfortunately, I lost four fingers on my left hand, but I knew it could have been a lot worse so I did feel lucky that that was the only thing that had happened, but at the time it did crush all my dreams. Like I said before, I was starting to think like, "Wow, cross-country skiing could be a cool path to follow. I wonder where I could go with this." And then after having my accident I realized... Well, I didn't think that would ever be a possibility ever again.

Joeita Gupta:
Oh, wow. And you must have been terrified about what the future would hold for you, but I read somewhere that you were back skiing a little over two weeks after that accident. Is that true?

Natalie Wilkie:
That's true. I think at that point I really just wanted to.

Joeita Gupta:
So, what happened?

Natalie Wilkie:
I wanted to get back into a routine. I mean, I had been training more or less full-time that entire spring after my first national competition and taking two weeks off, staying in the hospital, having to sit around at home was the hardest two weeks I've ever done. And so my doctor told me, "Two weeks is the amount of time that you have to take off and then after that you can start walking or running or even skiing again." And yeah, I followed that to the letter. Two weeks I was back on the treadmill trying to walk, gain my fitness back and my coaches helped me develop a strap so I could try and use two poles again. It didn't work super well, but it did get me back into training and sport and back into routine, and I really credit that for getting me through a really difficult time.

Joeita Gupta:
No, I bet it must have been a huge thing to be able to go back to something that you had started to really enjoy doing and something that you saw a future in. Who is it that talked to you about now participating in the Paralympic games and saying, "Well, maybe you could or you couldn't participate in able-bodied cross-country skiing, but look, there's still the option to compete and to represent the country in the Paralympic games?" Do you remember what that conversation was like?

Natalie Wilkie:
Yes. So actually at the time, I didn't even know what the Paralympics was or at least didn't know very much about it, which I'm really embarrassed to say now. But I had actually... The Paralympics wasn't on my mind until months later. I mean, a few months later my coach contacted the head of Cross Country Canada to see if there was any pair of programs that I could join or try out. And so I did join kind of like a tryout camp where I was skiing with one pole and I was surrounded by other athletes who had similar disabilities to me and athletes who were in sit skis. And it just was kind of a turning point seeing all these athletes.

Joeita Gupta:
I'm curious about how para cross-country skiing might be different from able-bodied skiing. Did you have to change your technique in any way?

Natalie Wilkie:
Yeah, greatly. I mean, for me with... I just ski with one pool instead of two, so it's not as big of a difference as say someone who switched from cross-country skiing, able-bodied, into skiing in a sit ski. I feel like that's the biggest difference. But even switching to one pole, that was a huge shift in technique because obviously, it gets a little bit harder to... One of the techniques we do is double pole where you use both of your poles to propel yourself forward. And obviously with one pole that's a little harder to do, so you just kind of have to adapt and shift your technique with that. And that's something... I mean, I'm still working on technique to this day. It's a never-ending process.

Joeita Gupta:
I'm curious about that a little bit because, bear in mind, I haven't ever done cross-country skiing of any kind, so you'll have to excuse me if this is an ignorant question. You've had a lot of success with cross-country skiing, and I'm curious about how much of that comes down to skill and refining the technique that you said is an ongoing process and whether there's also maybe a component of strategy to determining how to best negotiate a particular slope or a particular course? As just as I said, as someone who really has no familiarity with cross-country skiing, how much of that comes down to developing your technique and how much of it might be having some kind of a strategy as you approach a competition?

Natalie Wilkie:
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think cross-country skiing, besides being one of the hardest endurance sports in the world, is also extremely hard to master the technique. I mean, like I said before, it's an ongoing process. There's always going to be a few niggly things that you're working on your entire career. So, I would say skill and technique is a huge part of being a skier. But yes, strategy and tactics also really come into play. I mean, you have to know your own personal strengths and weaknesses and kind of play to that on the course. If you're really good at downhills and corners, maybe that will become your focus in a race.
And especially if you're skiing with other people, sometimes we do mass starts where everybody starts at once and it's kind of first across the line who wins. You really have to have a plan. I mean, I always write a race plan the night before just on how I'm going to tackle the course and how I'm going to ski with other people because you need to know when to hang back, when to push forward, how not to get into a tangle and crash because that happens quite often. So yes, I would say there's a lot of strategy and tactics and thought involved when racing.

Joeita Gupta:
When you think about how far you've come as an athlete, and when you think about the fact that you've now had the chance to represent Canada at the Paralympics and at other international events, what is it that draws you to that level of competition?

Natalie Wilkie:
I think the challenge of personal development is what I'm most focused on. I mean, it's one thing to win competitions, but I think it's a whole other ball game to set goals for yourself developmentally like maybe it's a certain technique that I'm working on, or maybe I just want to ski a race tactically well, and I have a plan and a goal that I want to execute. So, it's not even just about the results, it's about the specific goal that I have for that race. After each race I always ask myself, "What went well? What didn't go so well? What could I do next time?" And I think that really keeps it interesting and keeps the challenge high. And, I mean, every single race is different. There's going to be different people racing, there's going to be different conditions and certain courses play to other people's strengths or maybe your strengths. And so there's always something fresh or new or exciting or challenging going on.

Joeita Gupta:
You are one of the busiest people I have ever had to chase down as a producer. I would phone you or I would email you and you'd be training or you'd be doing something else. A lot has been made of the fact that you are, or at least were in 2018, one of the youngest members of Team Canada. And I'm curious about how, as a young person, you might've balanced the need to train and compete in cross-country skiing with, well, having a life and hanging out with your friends and going to the movies and doing all the other things, keeping up with academics. What's been your strategy to achieve work-life balance?

Natalie Wilkie:
I would say, especially around my first Paralympics, I was 17, just turned 17, and so I was still in high school, had a year and a half to finish. And the way I balanced training and a social life and after-school activities was just knowing my limits, knowing how much I could personally handle. I mean, sometimes my social life took a bit of a hit when I needed to train. But I think the other thing was I was also in a training group with a lot of my friends, and so I could kind of combine social time with training time, which I know not a lot of people are lucky enough to be able to do. And then, yeah, just around school being really efficient with my time. I remember I had a 40, 45-minute bus ride to and from school, and so I would use that time to study or work on projects just because I knew I would have training right after school, so I wouldn't have as much time as most people.

Joeita Gupta:
How much time do you spend training nowadays and what does your typical day look like when you have to be training for a major competition?

Natalie Wilkie:
Currently, my yearly hours for this year are at 750, so that, usually for me, is 10 to 25 hours per week depending on the training phase. It totally varies depending on the time of year like in the summertime, we really try and bump up our hours, so that's when we get more the 20 to 25-hour weeks. I'm at a training camp right now in Nama Lake, California. That's why I was so hard to get ahold of. And we're training twice a day from three to sometimes five hours per day. So, I mean, it doesn't sound like that much time, but it ends up taking up a lot of time because then you get super tired from the training and sometimes you have to nap and you also have to prepare for the training, so it ends up being more hours than you'd expect.

Joeita Gupta:
How much of it is just... There's obviously the actual skiing part of the training, but I'm sure there are other components to the training as well, going to the gym. Nutrition must be a really big part of it as well, I would imagine.

Natalie Wilkie:
Yeah, so we have a team nutritionist who we work with quite often just on how to adequately fuel for training during training, after training. It's quite a science. I feel like I've learned a lot the last couple of years about fueling my body. And, yes, it's not all just skiing. Well, in the summertime we roller ski, which is kind of like roller skating, but with poles. We also hike, we run, we bike, we go to the gym. We have a lot of different modes of training and a lot of us will have kind of a daily activation that we do before training or just on its own just to address any weaknesses that we might want to fix. So, yeah, it's quite a variety of things that we do.

Joeita Gupta:
Outside of cross-country skiing, do you have any other hobbies and passions that you like to pursue?

Natalie Wilkie:
Yeah, I am super into painting and photography. I've been kind of artistic since I was young. I was the kid who was drawing on everything. I have the art around my family's home on walls and windows and everything to prove it. My mom wasn't super happy, but a lot of my art is still on the walls. And then I started getting into photography a couple of years ago. And another thing that a lot of people are surprised to hear is I have five horses. I'm a farm girl. My family lives on a hobby farm. And, yeah, I haven't been able to spend as much time at home the last years I would've liked, but they're in BC, I'm in Alberta, so it's a few hours to drive home, but I spend as much time at home as I can. And, yeah, I love riding training horses, just hanging out in the peace and quiet of living out in the country.

Joeita Gupta:
I mean, there's obviously the hanging out in the peace and quiet in the country, but what else is it that captivates you about training horses? You're actually probably the first guest I've ever had who is interested in training horses. So, what is it that gets you so excited about doing that?

Natalie Wilkie:
Honestly, the challenge I guess, and I feel like horses have taught me so much about myself too. I didn't think I would ever get into training horses, but a few years ago my family bought a few rescues and they were untrained and we had a trainer work with one of them, and I was always hanging out around her and watching what she did, and I got super interested so I rented books from the library, I watched YouTube videos and I just kind of tried to do it myself, which obviously made the journey a lot longer than if I'd known what I was doing. But I learned so much along the way. And I think really the best part of training horses is the partnership that happens between you and your horse. I mean, you get to know each other so well. The communication gets so refined, and I just find it really, really special to be communicating with another being on such a level.

Joeita Gupta:
And you've got five horses now? Are some of them older, some of them younger? What's the age range there?

Natalie Wilkie:
Most of them are around 10 years old, I'd say, give or take a few years. We have one pony who I grew up riding on. He's in his twenties now and my younger sister is riding him now. But, yeah, so there is quite a range of the ages of the horses we have.

Joeita Gupta:
Oh, that's very nice. You also mentioned you like to paint. What kind of painting do you do? Is it watercolour? Do you have other types of painting that you're interested in? Is it mostly landscapes that you're doing or portraits? Tell me a little more about the painting that you're doing.

Natalie Wilkie:
Yeah, I kind of do a bit of everything. I love watercolour, especially if you're on the road. I usually bring some... A watercolour pad and pencils and brushes with me just because it's easy and portable and you can... I don't know. I feel like that's the easiest to do when you're travelling. When I'm home I love painting with acrylics and oils on canvases, and I would say what I paint greatly varies on what kind of mood I'm in. I do paint a lot of animals and portraits of people, but sometimes I just love painting landscapes too, so it really varies.

Joeita Gupta:
That's nice. Coming back to talking about cross-country skiing, I wonder if you've given some thought to what impact your legacy as an athlete or your accomplishments as an athlete may have for people with disabilities in general, and whether you perceive some kind of a linkage between your ability to compete as a parasport athlete, breaking down barriers for people with disabilities in general.

Natalie Wilkie:
Yeah, I mean, I hope with what I've done I can inspire people to do the same if not more. I feel like I have a pretty unique story going from a traumatic shop accident to Paralympic champion and... I don't know. I'm just saying that because it's not something that I would've ever expected of myself. I don't think I mentioned this before, but when I did decide to go to the Paralympics, I mean, I qualified a few months before at a World Cup in Canada, and I was really unsure if I should actually even go or not because I didn't think I was at the level to be able to compete on the world stage. And embarrassingly enough, I was a little worried about missing all the school to go to the Paralympics because it's two weeks, I mean, away from school. But I am really glad. I went just for the experience, just to have a bit of fun.
My mom ended up flying to South Korea as well to watch me race, and so it was a huge shock, a huge surprise when I did really well and won medals. So, I just hope that my story can inspire people to know that, I mean, anything is possible. Just follow your dreams. And even if they're big and scary, more often than not, I mean, if you reach for the moon or what's that saying, "You shoot for the stars, land on the moon," that's kind of what I feel like in this situation. Just go for it and see what happens.

Joeita Gupta:
That's a really amazing way to look at life. You still have... I mean, you're still quite young and you have years if not decades ahead of you. What else are you aspiring to do?

Natalie Wilkie:
I have some bigger goals for this season. I mean, I've already reached a lot of my goals in cross country, but this season we are having Biathlon World Championships in Prince George, so it'll be a home world championships. And Biathlon is something that I've been struggling with the last few years. I had a fairly good season last year, and so I hope to keep that momentum going and maybe snag a couple of podiums at this Biathlon World Championships, especially on home soil. My family's going to come watch and I really want to do well in front of a home crowd. And yeah, I'm also hoping to compete in a few able-bodied races in December and January and just see how far that can take me. So, we've got a few different challenges and goals set up for this season and we'll see how it goes.

Joeita Gupta:
That sounds amazing. Natalie Wilkie, thank you so much for speaking to me today. It was a pleasure to have you on the program.

Natalie Wilkie:
Thanks. It was a pleasure to be here.

Joeita Gupta:
Natalie Wilkie is the recipient of a King Clancy Award and podium check at the 30th Canada Disability Hall of Fame luncheon. And that wraps up our coverage off the Canada Disability Hall of Fame. You've now heard from three remarkable people, each of whom has been a trailblazer for the disability community. If you have any feedback about any of the preceding episodes, you feel free to drop us a line. You can write us an email feedback@ami.ca. You can also give us a call at one, eight, six, six, five, 0, nine, four five, four, five. That's one, eight, six, six, five, 0, nine, 45, 45. And don't forget to leave permission to play the audio on the program.
You can also find us on X, formerly Twitter, at AMI audio and use the hashtag Pulse AMI. This week The Pulse has been brought to you by the following people, videographer, Ted Cooper, video editor, Jordan Steeves, technical producer, Marc Aflalo. Ryan Delehanty is the coordinator for AMI audio podcasts and Andy Frank is the manager for AMI Audio. And I've been your host Joeita Gupta. Thanks for listening.