Ghana’s Snow Leopard will prowl up to Pemberton to make a den for the 2010 Olympics, as David and Maureen Lunny have reached out to offer their Drumkeeran House lodging to the Ghana ski team for the Games.

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, the Ghanaian alpine skier who has become known as the “Snow Leopard,” will represent his country in the men’s slalom and giant slalom races in Whistler. Nkrumah-Acheampong qualified even though he’s only been skiing for five years, and his story has attracted much attention as he speeds toward Whistler. He is the first athlete from Ghana to qualify for a Winter Games.

But the cash-strapped Ghana ski team needed to send out an SOS to find housing to support his final push to make history in Whistler.

After the team issued an appeal on its website on Jan. 31, the Lunnys rose to the occasion, offering space for the 11-member group with Nkrumah-Acheampong and his family and support team members in their Drumkeeran House resort on Ivey Lake. In a Tuesday (Feb. 9) statement from Tourism Pemberton, David Lunny said the team “had no hesitation in warmly accepting our offer.”

“Kwame considers that what has come about was something that was meant to be,” Lunny said.

The statement said Nkrumah-Acheampong and the team will be welcome at Pemberton’s Olympic festivities, and it’s hopeful that they will engage in activities such as speaking to students and attending some of the Winterfest events.

Last year, Pemberton attracted attention by offering to serve as the North American training base for the current incarnation of the Jamaican bobsleigh team, another group of unlikely but speedy winter athletes. But financial constraints and lack of track time scuttled those plans for the first half of 2009, according to team statements, and a hoped-for return didn’t happen.