​​Fast Facts 

​I am 20 years old
I​ love skiing
I am visually impaired
I have a dog & a cat
I will never drive a car

But can go 80km/h on skis

I love to travel 
Good Food makes me hum

I am a WISH KID ​ & a Rick Hansen Ambassador

​I am an Apple Blossom Princess

Member of the Nova Scotia Para Alpine Team

The Enigma of

Brenda Mac Donald Lona

​​​​​​​​​​​​​B​renda MacDonald Lona 

I was born in Mexico to my Mom (of course) and my Dad. My mom is Mexican and my dad is Canadian which makes me a Mexican Canadian.

Funny how things work out, had we not moved to Canada I would never have had the opportunity to see snow, little less getting involved in Alpine Skiing.

For me it all started when my Mom and Dad took me to watch the 2010 Paralympics in Whistler BC.  While there my parents signed me up for Alpine Ski Lessons and I was hooked.

Then I changed schools in 2011 and boy was I excited, not only was I going to a new school but one that had Alpine Skiing as an activity every day after school from December to March, COOL.

But it wasn’t until 2012 that I was able to get back on the hill due to the fact that I was undergoing radiation treatment for a brain tumour and then had surgery on my spine to remove another tumour between C1 and C2. I guess I should tell you that I have NF1 (Neurofibromatosis type I) it is a disorder that allows for the growth of tumors throughout the body and is the cause of my disability, I have multiple tumors but the ones that affected my vision grow along my optic nerve and have pinched it so that now I have lost the vision in my left eye and have very limited vision in my right eye.

I was faced with the always present Perceptions & Preconceived Ideas of others as to what I could and could not do as a visually impaired person and now beginner skier. Let’s just say that my first full year of skiing was limited to a lot of runs on the bunny hill.

I still really enjoyed skiing and seeing that my school has a ski team I thought to myself that it would be a good idea to join it if nothing more it would get me off the bunny hill.

So in the summer of 2013 we did some investigating and found out that a hill in Nova Scotia was starting a Para Alpine group and I signed up and started learning how to ski and to race. At the end of the year my coach approached me and my family to let us know that I had been selected to be a member of the Provincial Para Alpine Ski Team.

Now I had some work to do, my parents didn’t want me to go to the Canada Games just to fill a spot, they wanted me to work hard on my physical fitness and my skiing skills and to do the very best job at representing the province of Nova Scotia.

So I put in a lot of hours of training and pushed myself hard and that hard work paid off with some great results at the 2015 Canada Winter Games where I finished 4th in Slalom and 6th in Giant Slalom.

That was the beginning, I then got classified as a B3 skier and started racing internationally, got a couple of National Championships, and have now decided to focus on my studies, I am taking Resort & Hotel Management in Selkirk College in Nelson B.C.

I will represent Nova Scotia at the 2019 Red Deer Canada Winter Games and will take it from there to see where I want to take my skiing career.

Some of my pics

Video Links