Do winter sports have a future in Quebec despite global warming?
This question has been raised following the publication of various studies since the beginning of the year, which tell us that the number of sites capable of hosting the Winter Olympics is likely to drop from 93 today to 52 in 2050. Quebec, for its part, can expect average temperatures to rise by 6.6 Celsius by the end of the century, i.e., 9 C in the north of the province, but 5 C in the south.
The short answer to the above question is yes. The long answer is yes, but…
Significant investment and ingenuity will be required to adapt winter sports in Quebec to these changes, a process that has been underway for varying lengths of time depending on the sport and the foresight of those responsible.
Angelica Alberti-Dufort, a climate change specialist at the Ouranos consortium, points out that the impact of global warming is not always obvious. “Climate science is complicated to understand because the climate is variable. This year clearly shows that winter, cold weather, and snow are not going to disappear completely.”
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However, the findings of extensive research conducted by Ouranos in 2024 for the Quebec Ski Areas Association (ASSQ) were not encouraging.
In a series of extremely detailed reports, Ouranos painted a picture of how winters in Quebec would evolve between now and 2050 and 2070 in different regions, based on two scenarios for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, one optimistic and the other pessimistic.
Broadly speaking, depending on the region and scenario, the reports predicted a 15- to 45-centimeter decrease in natural snow cover, a 15- to 25-day reduction in continuous snow cover on the ground, and an increase in the number of days of winter rain and freeze-thaw cycles.
To adapt, Ouranos experts concluded that ski resorts would need to increase their investments—particularly in snowmaking—by 18 per cent to 23 per cent by 2050 and 48 per cent to 72 per cent by 2070, depending on the scenario. They would also need, at best, 300 additional employees by 2050 and, at worst, 1,200 more workers by 2070 to maintain the slopes. At the same time, a two per cent to six per cent decline in ridership was also predicted over the long term.
A shortened season with lower attendance and the need for massive investments would normally point to a fragile business model, but that is not at all the opinion of the ASSQ. Its president and CEO, Yves Juneau, explains that “we have been experiencing these changes for several years. We have planned measures to adapt, such as snowmaking, but that’s not the only one.”
While Quebec is experiencing one of the coldest winters it has seen in several years, Yves Juneau goes so far as to say that “warmer average temperatures will provide much more pleasant conditions during the most important periods for us, in January and February, when we have the bulk of our business, because not many people ski at minus 30 degrees.”
He also points out that the shortening of the season will be felt mainly before the holidays and after spring break, “periods that are marginal for us. We can make generalizations based on the report, but when we analyze it more carefully, we see that the heart of winter will be preserved.”
Automation and snowmaking techniques, which allow snow to be made at minus-2 C rather than minus-7 C as in the past, will also extend the season, he says, adding that “with automation, we are able to overcome the challenge of rising labor costs.”
We have also learned how to maintain the ground in the summer so that we need less snow, and snow grooming equipment has evolved dramatically. “Snow groomers now have depth gauges that allow us to see where we have excess snow and where we are lacking, so we know where to move it on our trails and where we need to make more,” says Juneau.
And the investments will not slow down: the latest financial and economic study of the sector forecasts investments of $134 million over the next two years.
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“For us, making artificial snow is relatively new. We’ve been doing it for cross-country skiing for maybe 20 years, but it’s one of the strategies we use to adapt to climate change,” says Claude Alexandre Carpentier, executive director of Ski de fond Québec. For now, he says, artificial snow is used “mainly for our competitions, but eventually we will do it for recreational cross-country skiing.”
New methods now make it possible to produce snow in winter and store it in natural pits during the summer. By covering it with tarps and then wood chips or sawdust, 80 per cent of it can be preserved. “In Quebec, we’re a little behind in this regard,” admits Carpentier, “but it’s one of the strategies we’re considering.”
Trail designers are now also seeking to maximize forest cover to limit the trails’ exposure to the sun, and here too, they have learned to prepare the ground in summer and take advantage of new technologies. “Before, it took a lot of snow to be able to groom the trails. Now, with only 10 centimeters of coverage, we can create very good trails. They’ve really refined the equipment,” says Carpentier.
Carpentier also talks about solutions that exist elsewhere, such as synthetic mats that allow cross-country skiing in the summer, refrigerated trails, and even indoor trails. Admittedly, these are expensive solutions, but he points out that cross-country skiing has not been spoiled when it comes to public funding. ” Historically, when it comes to cross-country skiing, no one has ever thought of working with municipalities and governments to invest in infrastructure. Yet if you look at hockey, arenas cost millions of dollars, and there aren’t a million hockey players in Quebec (editor’s note: there are about 89,000), but there are a million cross-country skiers in Quebec.”
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Speaking of hockey, outdoor rinks have become a source of concern for municipalities. “In many cities across Quebec, there is always debate about whether or not to rebuild rinks,” acknowledges Guillaume Tremblay, president of the Union des municipalités du Québec (UMQ). At the end of each winter season, we look at the number of days people were able to use the rink versus the cost of maintenance, and sometimes we say to ourselves, ‘Wow, it’s very, very expensive in the end.’”
The UMQ has planned a workshop on the impact of climate change on recreation during its mid-May meeting. Mascouche, where Tremblay is mayor, has a dozen outdoor skating rinks. He has closed “two or three” in recent years. This is due to the cost—maintenance and installation of a trailer to accommodate skaters—but also because climate change has forced him to stop building them on surfaces that accumulate heat, such as asphalt. Laying tarps under the ice also helps to preserve them.
Of course, refrigerated rinks “are a bit of a dream for all municipalities,” acknowledges Tremblay. In Varennes, in the Montérégie region, the Polydôme was inaugurated in 2021. It is not only a refrigerated rink, but also a covered one that can withstand temperatures of up to 10 Celsius. This $6 million facility was made possible thanks to revenues from the rapid development of its industrial zone.
“The $6 million in Varennes has grown to perhaps around $8 to $10 million, and generally speaking, a city cannot build a refrigerated skating rink on its own without public assistance,” sighs Tremblay. However, Mascouche innovated two years ago by creating an ice trail to replace the local pond, which had become too dangerous for accidents in recent years. “It costs us much less than maintaining the pond, and it lasts longer.”
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If there is one winter sport where we are aware of the dangers of waterways that are not as deeply frozen as they used to be, it is snowmobiling. “The temperature in our lakes has risen by 1.2 degrees. This is very worrying, and over the past ten years or so, we have had to relocate several marked trails on lakes because they are no longer freezing over, and we have had deaths as a result,” explains Stéphane Desroches, executive director of the Quebec Federation of Snowmobile Clubs.
Beyond bodies of water, the issue of thin ice is also evident on trails, particularly during thaws. “We’ve invested a lot of money in culverts and bridges. In the past, we used to build ice bridges, but now, with global warming, we’ve become specialists in bridge building,” he says proudly, adding that all these small structures are built to strict standards.
It takes more snow to support a snowmobile than it does to support cross-country skiers, but here too, new grooming and summer maintenance techniques have made it possible to do more with less, says Desroches. “In the past, our groomers needed three feet of snow (about one meter) to be able to create trails. Now we can open trails with only 10 inches of snow (25 cm) and sometimes even less.”
Nevertheless, snow is still needed, and it is often scarce in the south. That’s why “we’ve created incentive parking lots a little further north. All snowmobilers have trailers, and they’re still coming. There is a lot of pressure to develop further north.”
Quebec remains a paradise for this activity. The latest economic study of the sector reported annual revenues of $3.7 billion in 2016, a large part of which comes from outside the province, Desroches points out. “It’s a very lucrative activity that brings a lot of money into Quebec. We have a lot of Americans and Ontarians who come here, and we still have many, many Europeans who come and bring new money.”
Two years ago, the Quebec Winter Carnival’s Ice Palace had to be closed for safety reasons due to mild weather. “All the festivals, ice castles, slides, Igloofests, and the like are still happening, but there is more rain in winter, thaws, and other factors that can also affect winter events,” notes Angelica Alberti-Dufort of the Ouranos consortium.
Event organizers will ultimately have no choice but to find activities that do not depend on snow or ice to offer festivalgoers, as it would be difficult to recoup massive adaptation investments for events that only last a few days.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
