About 60 people huddled in a cosy group around the Mount Aspiring College kapa haka group as they and kaumatua Darren Rewi welcomed people to the skifield, presided over by Snow Farm patron and former Prime Minister Helen Clark.
The $750,000 building was funded entirely from donations and is a day lodge for New Zealand’s only Nordic ski community, which has been based at the Snow Farm on the Pisa Range for more than 30 years.
A delighted Snow Farm Trust chairman Sam "Q" Belk told the Wanaka Sun, "from my perspective, it is a miracle to have it".
First there had been the challenges of Covid travel restrictions.
Then, at the end of the 2022 snow season, the lease with the southern hemisphere Proving Ground lodge ended.
Last snow season, the Snow Farm skiers operated from containers but now the new lodge is complete and the trust is looking forward to progressing to building stage two: a skifield classroom and shelter.
"No skifield should ever go into debt . . . But we knew we could probably get through this. So we took on debt to get everything ready for this year," Mr Belk said.
Skifield patron Helen Clark recalled she began skiing at the Snow Farm in 1991, when co-founder Mary Lee worked from a small portable cabin, where she made scones and cups of tea.
A keen outdoorswoman, Miss Clark arrived at the Snow Farm last weekend after five days ski touring in the Two Thumb Ranges near Tekapo, where conditions had been warmer and the snow soft.
Speaking during the public ribbon-cutting ceremony, she recalled the Snow Farm had been through "many chapters".
"I have cross country skied a number of skifields in the northern hemisphere and we have a world class facility here . . . What stands out for me for the Snow Farm is it is welcoming, inclusive, for every age and ability . . . It is not easy to run a not-for-profit ski club like this and keeping it going. It takes many, many hands and we have seen many hands come together for the new day lodge we have opened today," Miss Clark said.
