More Than A Quickie: Bonnie Wiegele has been in it for the long haul.
At 86, Bonnie Wiegele swims at least four times a week at the Fairmont Banff Springs. It’s where I caught up with her to ask what Norquay has meant to her over the years โ a selective conversation that could go in so many directions given her history. Born in Edmonton, she was a competitive gymnast and synchronized swimmer before she ever strapped on a pair of skis.
She swipes through photos on her phone, pausing on one of herself and Heather Percy in their synchronized swimming days. In the 1960s, long before synchronized swimming became an Olympic sport, Bonnie competed at the world level, travelling to Japan in 1964 to demonstrate the sport. She and Heather medaled together as a duet in the early 60s โ the same Heather whose children would go on to ski for Canada, including Karen, who medaled at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.
She pauses on another photo: herself waterskiing upside down, suspended from someone’s torso. They won nationals in the 60s doing that. “That’s me on top!”
Initially, Bonnie would drive down from Edmonton on weekends to teach skiing at Norquay alongside Heinz Vivian, George Geber and Rudi Gertsch. She had her Level 1 instructor’s certification, earned at Snow Valley, but maintains she was no skier. A natural athlete, she recalls watching people come down the mountain and thinking it looked easy. “They weren’t doing anything! I was used to gymnastics โ I looked up at Norquay and all they were doing was this” โ her hands trace a long, looping S in the air โ “they weren’t doing flips or anything.”
She taught beginners, though she and George would often abscond from their duties to ski the big chair, the Lone Pine being the most unforgiving instructor on the hill.
She swipes again โ her daughter Michelle, age one. “I used to teach with her on my back.”
Michelle became one of the first members of The Banff Quickies Ski Club when Bonnie and her husband Mike launched a new ski team at Norquay in 1976, joined by Ferron Rose, Kelly and Terryl Yurasek, and the Grandi kids: Vania, Astrid and Thomas. The team grew from 7 to over 100 in four years. Bonnie and Kika Grandi pretty much ran the show โ Mike was off building his heli-skiing empire โ organizing races and shuttling kids to competitions. Bonnie owned Quick Rent a Ski in the basement of the Mount Royal Hotel at the time; that’s how the club got its name, and she sponsored the team with equipment.
The youngest members started at age five. At twelve, they graduated to become the Banff Alpine Racers โ by which point, she notes with a laugh, they’d figured out what a “quickie” was and wanted nothing to do with the name. Bonnie stayed with the program for thirty years. To look at the team’s alumni now is to see a hall of fame of ski racing, including current Canadian National Alpine Ski Team members, Erik Read and Jeffrey Read. Jesse Kertesz-Knight, Kendra Giesbrecht and Jake Kertesz-Knight named to the Canadian Development Team. Past Alumni include recently retired Trevor Philp, Olympic Bronze medalist Jan Hudec, Thomas Grandi and Paul Stutz – recently inducted into the Bow Valley Sports Hall of Fame. 
Bonnie raced with the Rutrunners from the beginning in 1980, moving into masters competition in 1983. She became a national and international champion in her age group, competing until 2020.
“Sport brought me through life,” she says. Her beginnings weren’t easy, and skiing, she tells me, became her religion. And her place of worship: Norquay.
“If I wanted powder I could go to Blue River, but Norquay is my favourite. Nothing compares to the grooming, the way they keep the hills, the lodge โ it’s a community.”
While Bonnie was always on my radar for this blog, I happened upon her while she was filling her car in town โ a reminder that the most compelling stories here are often hiding in plain sight. But it’s her words, not mine, that say it best: Norquay, she tells me, is family.
