Common sense can sometimes go out the window at a Skills Canada event.
Just ask apprentice chef and Paul Kane graduate Peter Keith. The provincial bronze medallist recalls being at the 2010 provincial Skills Canada competition and getting the great idea to Saran-wrap the edges of his plates so he wouldn't dribble any food on them.
"What I wasn't thinking was that these plates were screaming hot," he says. The wrap melted, and he spent many precious minutes frantically scrubbing the plates clean. He ended up in last place.
"I lost my common sense there for a little bit," he says. "When you're in the middle of a competition, sometimes you're just not thinking straight."
The pressure is on for Keith and many other local high school and post-secondary students as they head to the Edmonton Expo Centre Thursday for the 20th Provincial Skills Canada Competition. They'll be up against about 650 of Alberta's finest up-and-coming tradespersons as they compete to prove who's the best at what they do.
It's a huge opportunity to network and push yourself, Keith says. "Once the competition's over, you always feel you've grown."
The competitors
Students will compete in about 44 different areas over two days, says Shawna Bourke, spokesperson for Skills Canada Alberta, including baking, welding, and robotics. Photography and joinery (a combination of cabinetry and carpentry) will be featured for the first time this year.
At stake are medals and scholarships, as well as a shot at nationals, which will happen in the Edmonton Expo Centre just two days after provincials wrap up.
Each competitor has been given a basic idea of what they'll be asked to make during the competition, Bourke says, but with key details left out. Cooks will know what they'll have to make, for example, but won't know their ingredients until they get to the event. They'll then have just two days to finish their jobs, all while demonstrating excellent time management and workplace safety skills.
Kaitlin Erdmann of Sturgeon County says she'll be making a jacket for the competition. The Grade 12 student will be one of several Sturgeon Composite High School students at provincials and the school's sole entrant into the fashion technology category.
She's spent the last several weeks working on a practice coat — one that she hopes to reproduce at the event. The toughest part will be doing it without the patterns (diagrams) typically used to make clothes. "It's all by memory."
Erdmann says she fell into sewing three years ago when she couldn't get out of a sewing class. She's since become skilled at tweaking patterns on the fly and now enjoys sewing blankets and costumes. She's already made an outfit for herself to wear to this summer's Japanese animation festival in Edmonton.
Erdmann suspects her costuming skills should come in handy at provincials.
"For me, I can just imagine something, make a pattern and make it," she says while preparing for her venture into this competition.
This will be Keith's fifth and final time at provincials, he says, due to its age limits, and he's gunning for gold. "It'll be very exciting to defend the home turf."
The event itself is pretty crazy, Keith says, as you can have baking, carpentry and welding all happening in the same big room. You also have school groups and tourists pestering you with questions, and judges scrutinizing your every move.
"I've kind of learned to tune it out."
Even if he doesn't win, Keith says he plans to stick with cooking and eventually open his own restaurant.
"Whether or not you get a medal, I always feel like I've accomplished something."
The competition runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Nationals start May 14. See skillsalberta.com for details.
