The BC Snowmobile Federation Snowmobiler of the Year for the 2012-13 season got into the sport almost accidentally.
Previously a professional snowboarder, Julie-Ann Chapman took up snowmobiling in 2005 as a way to get to the Whistler backcountry to go boarding. But it did not take long before she started leaving her board at home.
After moving from Quebec to British Columbia in 2003 to pursue a snowboarding career, Chapman said she “started to figure out what everybody was doing in B.C., which was going into the backcountry to snowboard.
“I knew I would have to get myself a snowmobile,” said Chapman. “I bought myself a snowmobile and that’s where my whole snowmobile career took off. I started leaving my snowboard at home, because it would take almost the whole day to get past the tree line to the alpine to go snowboarding. Instead of lugging my heavy snowboard and my snowboard boots and gear I just left everything at home to start to learn how to snowmobile properly. Then, when I started taking my snowboard back out, I wasn’t really having a good time snowboarding anymore, I was having more fun snowmobiling.”
“It became a passion of mine,” she said. “I ditched the snowboard passion and started a new passion.”
Encouraging women to ride
Having been a strong female competitor in the snowboarding community, where women have started to gain greater recognition in recent years, Chapman said she was intrigued by the fact that there weren’t many females involved in snowmobiling.
“I was in the whole snowboarding movement when it was male-dominated and there weren’t many females doing it, and as I grew in the snowboarding community I saw that women grew in the sport and a lot more women started to get more recognition,” she said. “I think that’s what got me into snowmobiling more and more. I felt that I could help make a similar movement in the snowmobiling industry to push women to get into it and have a good time and make it a sport for women.”
Today, Chapman is a professional snowmobiler involved with Slednecks and the Canadian Avalanche Association and has a reputation for climbing chutes, jumping cliffs and generally pushing the limits of the sport. But she believes her work to get more women into the sport has had a lot to do with her success.
Two years ago she established She Shreds Mountain Adventures, “the ultimate women’s snowmobile clinic retreat in the world,” in Pemberton to get more women into the sport by showing them how to do it in fun, safe environment.
“There were clinics for mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding and horseback riding, but at the time there weren’t any clinics for snowmobiling,” said Chapman. “You can take a snowmobile tour, but they’re not really teaching you anything. You’re following the guy in front of you at two miles an hour, and that’s not really what I had in mind. What I had in mind was a clinic-style environment to teach people how to snowmobile. It hadn’t been done before.”
The first She Shreds clinic garnered so much interest she had to limit participants to 20 people.
“I had such an awesome turnout and amazing feedback, and that’s what pushed me to go ahead and start my business,” she said. “Last year was the first year of full operation and it was a huge success. I did over 20 clinics; everything from private clinics all the way to 20-group clinics.”
Chapman has held her clinics in Pemberton, Squamish and Revelstoke, and said that in the future she would like to travel even farther for her clinics in order to show women that snowmobiling is a sport they can do.
“I have a true passion for the sport,” she said. “I think that spreading my passion for the sport has brought me to where I am today.”
For more information on She Shreds Mountain Adventures visit sheshreds.ca. If you are a female interested in snowmobiling but unsure of where to start and unable to attend a She Shreds clinic, Chapman suggests renting or borrowing a snowmobile and going out with people who know what they’re doing, are well-equipped and trustworthy.
“If you go out with someone who has never done it before and a belt breaks, you’re stranded,” she said. “You’re lining yourself up for disaster. Be prepared and go with the right people with the right mentality on a nice sunny day.
“As long as you’re introduced to it the right way, I can’t see not liking it.”
