Optimist Hill in Saskatoon prepares for busy Christmas break, warm weather

Winter has officially arrived in Saskatchewan, but the weather has other plans.

Instead of bone-chilling temperatures, the province is expected to hover around zero degrees to welcome the season.

The warmer-than-normal temperatures means people might be looking for outdoor activities.

For some, this could mean hitting the slopes at Optimist Hill in Saskatoon.

Maxine Tebbe, the General Manager of Optimist Hill, expects to see a large number of people come through the doors over the next few weeks.

“It’s going to be very busy with the beautiful temperatures that we got coming up in the next week,” she said. “We’re expecting to be very busy, we always are during the Christmas break.”

The hill has a tubing hill, an area for tricks, a training park and your typical ski slope.

“Our training park is going to be flooded with people,” she said. “Tubing is always very popular with families.”

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Each day around 500 to 600 people are expected to make their way to the hill according to Tebbe.

The hill was closed for a couple of days to make some repairs and just reopened on Saturday.

Tebbe said they’ve been bombarded with phone calls and emails asking if the hill will be open.

“I lost my voice answering the phone so many times,” she said. “People are still wanting gift cards for Christmas.”

As more foot traffic makes its way to the hill, the temperatures outside will get warmer.

Tebbe said this won’t cause any extra work on staff, but a close eye will have to be kept on the tubing lane.

“During the day when we get a lot of action on our tubing lanes the lanes heat up,” she said. “Then as the temperatures drop the lanes get a lot more slick … then we’ll just have our groomer come out, we’ll shut down the lanes for 15 minutes so that we can work it again.”

Danielle Desjardins, Meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said there isn’t expected to be much precipitation as we head into Christmas.

“Leading up into Christmas it looks quite dry and above normal for temperatures,” she said. “In the southwest corner we’re very likely to see temperatures rise above zero, and in the rest of southern Saskatchewan definitely approaching zero.”

Desjardins said these are well above the seasonal normal for this time of year.

Saskatoon is predicted to sit around -1 C on Christmas and Regina is expected to come in at -4 C.

The cold temperatures shouldn’t return before 2025.

“It looks like that warm trend is going to continue,” Desjardins said. “It still looks relatively dry and relatively warm heading into the new year.”