David England

A young Yellowknife man is pursuing his passion for freestyle snowmobile riding.

“I go out and I'm completely relaxed,” said David England. “Like I'm more relaxed on my bike, on my sled, then I would be sitting in my livingroom.”

In freestyle snowmobiling, competitors try to impress judges with mid-air tricks during huge jumps on their snowmobiles.

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England's passion for the sport began at an early age -- he started off racing snowmobiles when he was eleven years old.

“I did wipe out a lot,” he said. “It scared me at first cause, you know, wipeouts suck -- you wreck your sled, you hurt yourself, you don't wanna ride again...but you just get over that.”

According to his biggest supporter, his father, Frank, David always had no fear. He recalls listening intently as his son jumped his sled off floodlight ramps on the ice behind their house.

“You know hear lots of noise, and then it would go quiet,” said Frank. “And that's when we would get nervous. We started looking out the window making sure and the next thing you hear it start up again and the way he goes.”

David England's gotten good enough to attract the attention of a local sponsor. He also recently got news that he may be considered as an alternate in the upcoming Winter X Games, a sports event organized by American sports broadcaster ESPN that features actions sports such as snowmobiling and snowboarding.

This week, England is heading to Red Deer, Alberta's Elevated Tactics dirt-bike training camp. This winter he will be performing in a number of freestyle snowmobiling shows in the eastern United States and Quebec.