Mount Jamieson needs the community's help to prove it's the top peak.
The Timmins ski hill is working to be a year-round operation and is in the running for the Mackenzie Top Peak competition to help make the dream become a reality much sooner.
The top prize in the competition is $100,000.
For Mount Jamieson, which is a non-profit organization, the money would mean fast-tracking the development of its downhill mountain bike project, said resort CEO Eric Philipow.
“We’re looking to develop the first downhill mountain bike operation in all of Northern Ontario so it would be a chair access downhill mountain bike trail system that you would similar to Horseshow (Resort),” he said.
The single-track, one-way trail will wind its way down the hill similar to a slalom ski course or more technical natural trail, he said.
People use the chairlift, which will need new equipment to allow for the bikes, to get back to the top. The funding could turn the five-year project into one or two-year project, said Philipow.
“We do have a little bit of existing funding to get it going, it was mostly for the planning process and development aspect of the project. We’ve started a little bit of the flat ground development just to get a cross-country loop going, but as far as the downhill component, none of that’s actually got a shovel in the ground,” he said.
How to vote
There has been a lot of local support for online voting and Mount Jamieson has been near the top since the start.
That lead has slipped away and the resort is looking to the community for help to boost it again.
To earn points, people can vote online once a day or complete social media challenges to collect points. This part runs until March 8.
The top 10 communities at that point move on and Canadians will vote on who makes the top three. A panel of judges will select the winner, which will be announced on April 1.
Voting is at mackenzietoppeak.ca. Choose Mount Jamieson Resort as your peak and from there select nominate, where you'll be asked for your name and email address.
“If everyone can just double down, make sure they get their vote in every day, do a couple of challenges so we can really push to the finish and it would be huge for us not only to get to the top 10, but if we can get into that top spot then that gets us a lot of attention,” said Philipow.
