PEACEFULLY

Profile and significance

Tchad Lemay is a Québec-born freeski athlete and street filmmaker whose work sits at the heart of Canada’s urban skiing renaissance. Based out of the Centre-du-Québec corridor and active across Mauricie and the Québec City area, he leans into hand-built features, real-world spots, and a DIY filming ethos. In 2024 he released “Timeless,” a short that distilled a season of street missions into a tight, watchable cut, and followed up with “Peacefully,” a project framed around practicing urban skiing with respect for neighborhoods and passersby. The same year he took part in the B-Dog “Off The Leash” Video Edition—an invitational street showcase that draws many of Québec’s most creative park and urban skiers—and saw his work screen in the iF3 Montréal Urban program. While he isn’t chasing World Cup podiums, Lemay’s steady output of clean, well-edited street footage and appearances at core gatherings have made him a recognizable name in the province’s scene.

Competitive arc and key venues

Lemay’s calendar revolves less around bib numbers and more around edits, community events, and rider-driven contests. The iF3 selection for “Timeless” placed his film alongside a slate of independent street projects, while the “Off The Leash” Video Edition connected him directly to the community shaped by Philip Casabon’s long-running street legacy. On snow, he mixes Québec street trips with occasional park laps south of the border—most notably at Jay Peak in northern Vermont—where early-season sessions and spring lines help keep jump timing sharp. In his home province, the Urban night at iF3 has ties with the resort at Massif du Sud, and Lemay’s filming often threads through cities like Shawinigan, whose winter streets, stairs, and rails provide the raw canvas for the kind of shots that define his edits. The through line is repetition on real features: shovel, salt, test speed, and roll camera until the trick reads clean from approach to stomp.

How they ski: what to watch for

Lemay’s skiing is all about clarity under constraint. On rails, look for centered stance and quiet shoulders that make spins on and pretzels off feel intentional rather than forced. He favors solid lock-ins on down bars and kinks, quick edge changes to stay online through imperfect run-ins, and exits that preserve speed for the next setup. When he takes to park jumps—whether at home or at Jay Peak—he foregrounds grab duration and axis readability over chaotic spin-to-win attempts. The effect is a style that survives variable speed and bumpy inruns, two constants of real-world urban skiing. Watch the details: early grab placement, full-hand contact through rotation, and landings that finish stacked over the skis.

Resilience, filming, and influence

“Peacefully” telegraphed what matters to Lemay beyond the trick list: a respectful, community-minded approach to street spots. The film’s premise—showing that urban can be practiced with freedom, pleasure, and respect—comes through in the way he and his crews work around pedestrian flow, noise, and cleanup. That mindset isn’t just ethics; it’s practical. When you spend fewer social calories negotiating a spot, you have more left for the mental reps that make a hard trick possible. Lemay’s Off The Leash involvement further tied him into Québec’s street lineage, placing him in rooms and on group sessions with riders whose influence extends from classic DVD sections to today’s social-era edits. The net effect is a skier using film work not just to showcase skills, but to contribute to the culture around how urban is done.

Geography that built the toolkit

Québec’s winters shape Lemay’s toolkit. Reliable cold, frequent freeze–thaw cycles, and cityscapes dense with rails and ledges create ideal conditions for street lines. In Mauricie and Centre-du-Québec, smaller cities provide lower-traffic zones where crews can build without constant resets. Trips to Massif du Sud add big-snow days and varied terrain within a few hours’ drive, while border hops to Jay Peak supply park mileage to keep air awareness tuned. That mix—urban texture at home and clean park lines on travel days—explains why his edits read both creative and composed.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Lemay’s projects don’t revolve around headline sponsorships, but the setup principles behind his skiing are clear. A modern twin-tip park ski mounted near true center supports both-way spins and keeps swing weight predictable for quick corrections on kinked rails. Edges are detuned at contact points to reduce hang-ups without dulling pop for lip-on tricks. Boots with supportive—but progressive—forward flex help maintain stacked landings on rough snow, and bindings are set for consistent release values that balance urban impacts with confidence on jump days. For progressing skiers, the lesson is simple: build a neutral, repeatable setup you trust from the first test hit to the make, then keep the tune consistent so your tricks read the same from spot to spot.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Lemay represents an accessible pathway into the sport’s creative core. You don’t need a World Cup bib to matter in freeski; you need a point of view, clean execution, and edits that hold up to repeat viewing. His films and event appearances offer exactly that: trick choices that favor clarity, spot use that respects surroundings, and a willingness to show the process as much as the make. For viewers, he’s a dependable watch when the iF3 Urban slate rolls around or when Off The Leash highlights circulate. For skiers trying to level up, he’s a case study in how to turn local winters into meaningful projects—plan the spot, respect the space, and let the skiing speak.