Culture

(Photo Caption Above) - Stewards of Skiing: On Nov. 17, 2018, at the annual dinner for the New England Ski Museum held at the Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley, Mass., ISHA board members David Ingemie and Art Currier presented NESM president Bo Adams and executive director Jeff Leich (ED) with the ISHA Steward of Skiing Award. (l-r) David Ingemie, Bo Adams, Jeff Leich, and Art Currier. Photo courtesy of Pam Fletcher, Nashoba Valley Ski Area, Westford, Mass.

MANCHESTER CENTER, VT (Dec. 6, 2018) – The high-speed six-pack lifts, super-efficient snowguns, and waterproof/breathable ski apparel that skiers and riders take for granted didn’t come from nowhere.

Today’s downhill skiing, cross country, telemark and snowboarding sits on the shoulders of a rich 150-year-plus modern-era history of sliding downhill … and going back up again.

The nonprofit International Skiing History Association (ISHA) recognizes the sport’s heritage and honors organizations at the forefront of preserving this rich history.

On Nov. 17, 2018, ISHA presented its second Steward of Skiing History Award to the New England Ski Museum (NESM), based in Franconia, N.H. Dedicated to “Preserving the Future of Skiing’s Past,” since 1977, the museum directors, members and staff have worked hard to collect and display objects that tell the story of skiing.        

In addition to a plaque, NESM will be recognized in the November-December 2018 issue of Skiing History, ISHA’s bimonthly magazine that covers the sport’s illustrious past, and through social media.

Established in early 2018, the Steward of Skiing History Award honors museums and other organizations that share the heritage, history and legacy of skiing with the world. ISHA’s first Steward of Skiing History Award recognized the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum, based in Ishpeming, Michigan. 

In accepting the honor, NESM executive director Jeff Leich said, “Often the work of organization and preservation takes place behind the scenes, and it is heartening to have ISHA understand and acknowledge the museum’s role in this important aspect of our mission.”  

The Steward of History plaque is displayed in NESM’s library at its Eastern Slope branch in North Conway, N.H.

Adds ISHA president Seth Masia, “With its academic-quality historical research and more than 26,000 curated items in its collections, the New England Ski Museum is an incomparable valuable institution. Whatever we can do to support their work supports all of us who hold the sport’s history so close to our hearts.”    

In addition to publishing Skiing History six times a year in print and online, ISHA also maintains skiinghistory.org, the internet’s most extensive website for information about the sport’s history, and presents annual awards for lifetime achievement and the year’s best ski history books, films and creative media.

Just how many of us are there? That’s a controversial question. 
By John Fry

How many people ski in the USA? Or ski and snowboard? Neither of the industry estimates that are typically and most prominently mentioned in the press is precise. I’ve arrived at a rough estimate after weeks of emailing, phoning and Googling, and listening to all sides in a controversy that’s been going on for almost 60 years...

Photo above: The Rivers Triplets of Long Island are U12 racers who train at Windham Mountain, New York. Left to right: Helaina D. Rivers, Henri D.L. Rivers IV, and Henniyah D. Rivers.

By Jay Cowan

In a 12-month period that has seen perhaps the greatest re-examination of race and race relations in America in the past half-century, the annual meeting of the National Brotherhood of Skiers (NBS) in Squaw Valley in March 2018 had particular resonance. While members did what all ski clubs do—ski, party, race, don costumes and have fun—they also quietly went about their 45-year-long effort to diversify what has been described as one of the whitest large-scale recreational sports in the country.  

For years, skiing in America was like golf and tennis and primarily the province of Caucasians. You didn’t see many more African Americans on the slopes than you did at a rodeo. 

But just as with golf, tennis, and even rodeo, skiing has been getting more diversified. And much of that is certainly due to the NBS. It’s one of the largest ski councils in America, comprising 55 predominantly black ski clubs with 3,000 members, and they’ve introduced tens of thousands of African Americans to the sport since 1973.

Though there were already a number of black ski clubs in the U.S. in the early 1970s, African Americans were a small percentage of the skiers on the slopes. Art Clay was the trip director for the Sno-Gophers Ski Club of Chicago, and Ben Finley was president of the Four Seasons West Ski Club of Los Angeles, when Clay first heard about Finley. “I contacted Ben in 1971, I think, and we talked about holding a gathering of black ski clubs, and spent a year and half trying to reach as many black skiers as possible. They were pretty rare back then.” 

“When Art and I put this together,” says Finley, “it was just to meet and socialize, and discuss issues common to the 13 clubs that attended.” Three hundred and fifty people turned out for the first of what would become annual meetings—alternating Black Summits with the Annual Meeting/Challenge Cup, a.k.a. Mini-Summits—held at Aspen Mountain in 1973. What resulted was a plan to form a national organization, “With the intent of spreading the sport to the African American community,” says Finley. 

Buzz at that first meeting about a black ski racer from Chicago named Teo Hyde, who had a chance to make the U.S. Ski

 Team, influenced the organization’s first mission statement. The National Brotherhood of Skiers was officially formed over Thanksgiving weekend 1973 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and its primary purpose, endorsed by acclamation, was to place an African American on the U.S. Ski Team.

Proof that this could be an effective way of raising interest in skiing in black communities came from similar examples in golf, tennis and rodeo, where famous black champions brought increases of African Americans into those sports. Even though skiing has yet to field its own Tiger Woods, Arthur Ashe or Bill Pickett, the NBS has continued to introduce large numbers of black skiers and boarders to the mountains. All of this is in spite of what many consider to be a substantial geographic barrier. As former racer Andre Horton says, “Black Americans simply don’t live in winter sports areas (beyond hockey).” 

“We’ve been very successful, and it’s all been done with volunteers,” says Finley. “The vast expansion of the sport into the African American community using ski clubs as the tool has helped us to build skiing as a community and a family.” It was a defining effort that soon became part of the NBS motto: To identify, develop and support athletes of color who will WIN international and Olympic winter sports competitions representing the United States and to increase participation in winter sports.

Meanwhile, African Americans have been piling up ski racing credentials. It started with a New York skier named Randy Philpotts. “I was a member of a black ski club in the city when I was a kid, and also skiing at Mount Snow with my dad and black ski instructors who took me under their wing,” says Philpotts. “So when NBS formed I wasn’t in awe of seeing black people on the slopes because I was always around them when I skied. But it was nice to see them. NBS has been an inspiration in bringing out more black ski clubs.”

Philpotts was the literal poster-child the NBS was looking for, in the late 1960s becoming the subject of a national ad campaign by Rossignol. “I was told it was the first ski poster ever with a black person.” In 1975, he won the first NBS Black Summit Challenge in Sun Valley at age 14. In 1991, he appeared in a second Rossignol ad, for the company’s blade-skates and skis.

Bonnie St. John-Dean in 1984, and Ralph Green in 2006, 2010 and 2014, excelled in the Paralympics. In 1997, Jahi Rohrer placed fourth in slalom at the National Junior Championships. Errol Kerr, the Brooklyn-born son of a Jamaican father and American mother, grew up in Truckee, C

A, started as an alpine ski racer, switched to skiercross in 2008, and represented Jamaica at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, where he placed ninth. Halfpipe skier Zyre Austin won a silver medal at the FIS World Junior Championships in Italy in 2013, was an alternate for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and turned pro in 2015.

A brother and sister duo from Alaska, Andre and Suki Horton, became the most accomplished African American athletes yet in U.S. ski racing. They were the first black male and female members of the U.S. Alpine Ski Team and raced on the NorAm and Europa Cup Tours. Suki had three top-15s in FIS races in Alyeska, Alaska in 2004, including the U.S. National Championships. Andre was the first African American to win a FIS race in Europe (in Sella Nevea, Italy in 2001). Over three days in 2004, at home in Alyeska, he took fourth in a FIS downhill, then sixth in the U.S. national downhill and fourth in the national Super G—beating Bode Miller in the national championship races.

“The NBS was paramount in our careers,” says Andre. “With both our parents being schoolteachers, supporting two professional skiers with Olympic dreams is very difficult. The NBS equipped Suki and I with financial scholarships to race worldwide.” Both retired in 2004 and Andre, who is now a photographer in Alaska, served for four years on the board of the U.S. Ski Team/USSA. 

Today the NBS continues to develop ski racers and introduce African Americans to the sport by partnering with existing youth, church and community organizations such as the YMCA. As current NBS President Peggie Allen explains, “In order to keep moving forward, we have to help our clubs build their membership. We continue to build our outreach program, introducing blacks of all ages to winter sports. With our known retention rate, these outings will help bring new faces in.”  

That retention rate (the number of skiers who stick with it after their first try) is said to be as high as 75 percent, versus an average rate amongst the general population, according to NSAA, of 17 percent. Schone Malliet, the NBS’s Olympic Scholarship Fund Administrator, believes that high retention comes from the “depth and strength of community within the NBS.”

In 2015, Malliet helped raise $12 million to buy Hidden Valley Ski Area near Vernon, New Jersey, upgrade it and make it a non-profit skiing and snowboarding learning venue for kids from the New York City area. The National Winter Activity Center (winter4kids.org) hosted more than 1,100 kids in 2017. He credits the NBS with inspiring him. “All of this is part of what the NBS, at its core, really does.” 

At its peak, the NBS had more than 7,500 members from nearly 80 clubs. And when they come together to celebrate every year, they meet all over the U.S. and the world. They’ve congregated at far-flung venues ranging from Lake Placid, New York to Heavenly Valley, California, Big Sky, Montana, Sun Valley, Idaho (five times), Banff and Whistler in Canada, and Innsbruck, Austria. Colorado is an NBS favorite, including six events in Aspen/Snowmass and also in Steamboat Springs, and four in Vail, where in 1993 they held what is said to be the largest ski club event ever, with over 6,000 in attendance. Along with skiing, snowboarding, racing, lessons and tours, the meetings also host board meetings and focus groups, guest speakers, fundraisers, GospelFest with a sermon and choir, comedy shows, and live music. Special guests Sinbad and Mario Van Peebles were in Vail in ’93, and Raheem Devaughn performed at Snowmass in 2009.  

Like many ski clubs, the NBS took a hit in membership numbers during the last recession. The cushy deals that clubs have traditionally been able to strike at resorts are now available online and through multi-resort ticketing. Plus ski clubs are graying and not replacing members who retire. The average age of NBSers hovers around 50, while 65 percent of winter sports participants, per SIA, are 44 and under. 

There are also issues within the NBS. Some feel not enough is being spent on supporting promising competitors, others think there’s already too much emphasis on racing. Everyone likes the concept of the outreach programs, but they differ on the specifics. “I would really like to see more directed at being able to help families pay for their kids to get out,” says Art Clay. “For the families here in Chicago, it’s just too expensive.”

The NBS, as always, remains optimistic. “The fact that we have been in existence for 45 years serving the African American community is a major accomplishment,” says Peggie Allen. “The Squaw Valley 2018 Mini-Summit was fabulous, with over 550 participants. And that we still come together every year for our Summit—in support of our youth,  and introducing our under-represented community to winter sports and our spirit of family and fun—is our legacy.” 

Longtime Aspen resident Jay Cowan is the author of several books, including The Best of the Alps. He has won multiple awards, including the Harold S. Hirsch Award (North American Association of Snowsports Journalists) and the Lowell Thomas Award (Society of American Travel Writers), among others.

CLICK HERE TO READ RICK KAHL’S ANALYSIS OF HOW BLACK PARTICIPATION IN SKIING HAS CHANGED, STATISTICALLY, OVER THE YEARS.

Penguin Power!

One of North America’s first and most successful ski clubs was created in Quebec entirely by, and for, women.

By Cara Armstrong and Lori Knowles

Ski clubs have played an important role in the growth of Quebec’s Laurentians as a major North American ski hub, as well as in the development of world-class Canadian racers. And few clubs have been as successful as the Penguin Ski Club, founded in 1932 by a group of young Montrealers—a group consisting entirely of women. In the decades since then, Penguins have won alpine and nordic medals at the Olympic, World Cup, Master’s and national level; been inducted into national and regional halls of fame; and have been awarded some of Canada’s highest honors.

In the 1933 edition of the Canadian Ski Club Annual, the Penguin’s founder and first president, Betty Sherrard—born in Mexico City, raised in Montreal and educated in England—said the club’s mission was: “to help its members enjoy skiing to the fullest, and to advance the standard of ski proficiency amongst women.” To begin, she recruited fellow female skiers from the Junior League of Montreal and the Canadian Amateur Ski Association. She also worked closely with the all-male Red Birds Ski Club of McGill University, founded in 1928. 

While inspired by the Red Birds, the Penguins opted for broader membership criteria. As noted in the club’s official history, The Penguin Ski Club: 1932–1992, the women elected to found their group outside the university as an “important opportunity for young Montreal women to travel, socialize, and stay together [as well as] offer the first ski instruction and competition specifically for women.” Membership was by invitation, and the first recorded meeting was held on March 29, 1934. Members could make nominations and the executive committee would discuss each one.  One “blackball” meant the nomination was referred to the committee, and two meant the nominee was out. 

Making Headlines

The Penguins began making headlines almost immediately after being formed. Olympic track-and-field gold medalist-turned-journalist, Myrtle Cook, began featuring the club in her sports column, “Women in the Sportlight,” on a regular basis for the Montreal Star. In 1933, the Boston Herald featured a story on this unique all-female group. Both newspapers were fascinated by Duke Dimitri von Leuchtenberg’s work with the club. As a graduate of Hannes Schneider’s Arlberg Ski School and former director of the ski school at Peckett’s-on-Sugar Hill in New Hampshire, von Leuchtenberg had taken on the task of improving the Penguin’s skiing skills and honing their racing technique. 

They practiced at Mont Saint-Sauveur, and held their first meet during the winter of 1934. The early competitions included downhill, cross country, jumping, slalom and a bushwhack race. Laurentian ski pioneer Herman “Jackrabbit” Johannsen organized the festivities and set up the bushwhack course down an unmarked slope. From the club history: “‘I remember the bushwhack races,” said Penguin member Percival Ritchie. “They were soon outlawed,” she said. “We would start from the top of a steep, uncleared hill and race straight to the bottom. I ended up in a barbed wire fence, tore my pants and cut my knee. This made me very proud. I still have the scar.’” 

In 1935, the Penguins joined the Canadian Amateur Ski Association and began competing in women’s races. In that first year, they participated in eight ski races and won every single one of them. Members of the group continued to either win or place in the top five of the Canadian Championships from 1936 to 1939.

Penguin House: A Home is Built by the Molsons

During their early years, the Penguins led a peripatetic existence. In 1933, club members used two rooms above the Banque National in Saint Sauveur as their base. In 1934, they moved to a house on the “station road” that had three small bedrooms, four cots per room and one bathroom. Members claimed they could “lean out one side of a cot to brush their teeth and out the other side to cook bacon for breakfast!” 

Desperate for more space, the club moved the following year to a house in Piedmont, Quebec, but soon determined it was too far away from the ski action. A permanent home was needed. According to the official history, John and Herbert Molson of beer fame stepped in as Penguin patrons in late 1938. The Molsons donated land three-quarters of a mile from Saint Sauveur, as well as the funds for construction of a building for “the fine women who were doing a lot for the Canadian sport (of skiing) and for the enjoyment of the outdoors.” The Penguin Ski House opened officially on January 1, 1939.

Designed by Alexander Tilloch Galt Durnford of the Montreal architecture firm Fetherstonhaugh and Durnford, the house had a stone foundation, square log construction that weathered to a silvery gray, pink gables, and a black Mansard roof. The front door opened onto a ski room that sported racks for 24 sets of skis, a workbench, and a small stove for waxing. Seven bunkrooms housed 24 built-in bunks. 

Additional items provided by the Molsons, including mattresses, pillows, blankets, furniture, and coal for three years—even 24 toothbrushes in their holders in the bathroom—kitted out the house.  Founding member Betty Kemp Maxwell, who was studying at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, had created a Penguin logo, and it was inscribed over the fireplace. A unique chandelier with ski tips projecting from a pewter center made the Penguin House extraordinary.

Nine years later, in 1948, the Red Birds built a clubhouse just a few hundred yards away, on land also donated by the Molsons. Penguins attended many weekend Red Birds parties, leading to several marriages over the years.

The Penguins’ War Effort

Despite the planning that went into its design, Penguin House did not get the start its members hoped for. Within its first year, Canada declared war on Germany and entered World War II. The club joined in the war effort as part of Operation Pied Piper, a mass evacuation plan born out of British fear of air attack from German bombers. More than 20 British refugee children aged five to 14, plus two English nannies, spent the summer of 1940 at Penguin House. 

Many Penguins also joined the war effort. Seven became members of the Canadian Women’s Transport services. Others took over the jobs local men vacated to serve overseas. Penguin Patricia Paré, for example, became the first female professional ski instructor at Quebec’s Mont Tremblant.

New Directions:
The Winning Wurtele Twins

With many of its original members occupied with the war effort, the club set out to attract new interest by hosting novice races and recruiting.  Among the new members were Westmount-raised identical twins Rhona and Rhoda Wurtele, who, fresh out of high school, became Penguins in 1942. 

It wasn’t long before the Wurteles were winning nearly every race they entered, from Quebec to California. Rhoda won Tremblant’s Taschereau downhill by a convincing 24 seconds, beating both the women and the men. Rhona placed second among the women and ninth overall. The twins’ skiing (and swimming) talents received a lot of attention in the Canadian press. In 1947, Rhona and Rhoda were joint runners-up for the Lou Marsh Trophy, given by the Canadian Press to Canada’s Most Outstanding Athlete. All of it lent to Penguin prestige.

The Penguins and The
Winter Olympics

World War II caused the cancellation of two Olympics, but the Penguins were finally able to compete on the world stage at the 1948 Olympic Winter Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland. It didn’t go so well. The Wurtele twins were the only two members of the Canadian Women’s Alpine Team. Rhoda cracked her anklebone six days before the Games, and Rhona had an accident during her run…leaving Canada without medals.

The Penguins returned to the international arena in 1952 for the Winter Games in Oslo, Norway. Rhona was pregnant and unable to compete, but Rhoda was joined in Oslo by fellow Penguins Rosemary Schutz and Joanne Hewson, as well as Penguin Lucile Wheeler. The four competed as the first complete, four-woman alpine ski team Canada had ever sent to the Olympics. 

In 1956, Wheeler was joined by Penguin Anne Heggtveit on Canada’s Olympic Alpine Ski Team at Cortina d’Ampezzo. Wheeler won a bronze in downhill, becoming both the first Penguin and the first North American to medal in the downhill. She followed this with a spectacular performance at the 1958 World Championships in Bad Gastein, Austria, where she won both the downhill and the giant slalom and came very close to winning the combined…ultimately taking the silver. She was the first North American to win a World Championship downhill. Wheeler won the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s most outstanding athlete of 1958, and was later inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame, and made a member of the Order of Canada, among other honors.

Formation of the Ski Jays

Despite the Penguins’ success, the 1950s were a time when resources for Canadian skiers were extremely limited. Even while winning races and medals, the members remained true to part of the Penguin Club founding mission: “To advance the standard of ski proficiency amongst women.” Penguins Bliss Matthews and Ann Bushell hatched the idea for the Ski Jay Club in 1957 for Montreal teenage girls, envisioning the Jays as a “nonprofit organization, founded, sponsored, and at all times backed by the Penguin Ski Club.” Rhoda Wurtele was head instructor at the ski school for 21 years.

Ski Jay Nancy Holland was the first to make the Canadian ski team in 1960. Holland was joined by Penguin Anne Heggtveit. That same year, Heggtveit won Canada’s first-ever Olympic skiing gold medal in Squaw Valley, California. Her victory in the Olympic slalom event also made her the first non-European to win the FIS world championship in slalom and combined. In Canada, Heggtveit’s performance was recognized by Canada’s highest civilian honor when she was made a member of the Order of Canada. She was awarded the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s outstanding athlete of 1960. These achievements were instrumental in increasing the popularity of skiing in Canada, and particularly in Quebec.

the Penguins Develop Grassroots

As the Laurentians began to thrive as a major ski destination, Penguin alumnae began spending more time recruiting and coaching new talent. Penguins Sue Boxer and Liz Dench started the Polar Bear Club in 1961 and taught four- to eight-year-olds to ski for the next 20 years. Rhona Wurtele founded the Ski Chicks in 1961 for nine- to 11-year-olds, and the Ski Jay program continued throughout these years for teens. All of these clubs groomed young girls to become Penguin members as they reached adulthood.  

At least seven Ski Jays were named to the Canadian national ski team in the 1960s, including Nancy Holland, Janet Holland, Faye Pitt, Barbie Walker, Garrie Matheson, Jill Fisk and Diane Culver. With the Wurteles at the helm of the club throughout the 1970s, membership peaked at more than 1,000.

The End of an Era

In 1972, increasing costs contributed to the need to sell Penguin House. It was later destroyed by fire. Founding member Betty Kemp sang its praises:  “Without the house, we wouldn’t have become and remained friends,” she said. “Without the house, we wouldn’t have had any responsibility to each other or the sport. Bonding. From the house, we learnt the responsibility of maintaining it and the club. From the club, we learnt to work together, to organize races, and to give school girls and others, the opportunity for the young to learn to ski.”

The loss of Penguin House marked the end of an era. By the early 1980s, the Penguin Ski Club had cancelled its formal incorporation. “This definitely had an impact, but we stayed positive,” says Bev Waldorf, a Penguin since 1953. Bev has remained active in the Penguins since the house closed, working with her friend Margie Knight to plan reunions, organize an annual fall luncheon and publish an occasional newsletter. 

While the official club no longer exists, the spirit of the original Penguins continues. Forty-five members of the club celebrated the Penguins’ 75th anniversary in 2007, and 19 members—including five Olympians—gathered to celebrate its 85th anniversary in 2017.  

This article was originally prepared for the Canadian Ski Museum and Hall of Fame by Cara Armstrong, with subsequent research and updates by Lori Knowles and Nancy Robinson. Knowles is a Canadian writer and editor whose work appears in SNOW Magazine and the travel sections of The Toronto Sun and The Globe and Mail. Robinson served as researcher and developer for Byron Rempel’s biography of the Wurtele twins, No Limits. Special thanks to Penguin member Bev Waldorf, who vetted this article for accuracy.

Broadway lensman Werner J. Kuhn ran the patrol, taught first aid and shot PR photos at a popular Catskills ski area. By Jeff Blumenfeld

The image was typical of ski area publicity photos of the early 1960s. That was when skiers, our Long Island family included, received coverage in the local newspaper simply because we were an adventurous family that went skiing. 

In the New York Catskills at the time, Big Vanilla at Davos, an upside down ski area with parking at the summit, was a big deal. It attracted 3,000 to 5,000 skiers on a busy weekend, plus a smattering of celebrities, including TV comic Sid Caesar and other entertainers performing at nearby Borscht Belt hotels.   

Now defunct, Big Vanilla, with a 330-foot vertical drop, offered a quad chair, a J-Bar, a double, and two T-bars that small kids would ride like a chairlift. When it opened in 1959 as simply Davos, named after the Swiss resort, it became the largest in Sullivan County, outsizing Grossinger’s, Kutsher’s, the Concord, the Nevele, the Pines and Holiday Mountain. 

Located about 85 miles northwest of New York, the area offered 23 trails with typical Catskillian names like Sleepy Hollow, and a misspelled Rip Van Winkel (sic) Run, all available for a $4.50 lift ticket, $3 off-peak. 

The New York Times reported at the time, “Its slopes are not long, for the most part, but at least two of them are steep enough to make the skier of intermediate skill take careful stock of what lies below before shoving off.”

Nothing much happened at Big Vanilla that avoided the critical eye of the late Werner J. Kuhn. A Broadway photographer by profession, Kuhn was Mr. Big Vanilla. He ran the ski patrol, taught first aid, shot the publicity photos and even posed in them himself. 

“If you want something done, see a busy man,” goes the saying. When my father and I posed with him for a publicity photo, Kuhn, in his Tyrolian hat festooned with more than a dozen ski area pins, was apparently too busy to close his beartrap bindings. No matter. He was faking the image in street shoes. There I am at the age of nine in 1962, with bamboo poles, tinted “safety” goggles, lace-ups and stretch pants, launching my career in ski promotion. The photo would later appear in the Long Island Press, our hometown newspaper, in a column by the late Frank Elkins, affectionately nicknamed a “skiloader” for his propensity to never actually pay for a lift ticket.

Kuhn was frequently in the news, posing with WNBC-TV personality Steve Woodman, and other gung-ho skiers who visited, including my own family who posed for yet another publicity photo with ski school director Boris Dernic. Often you’d see Kuhn’s name appear as a Broadway photo credit. He photographed American stage and screen actress Molly Picon in the musical Milk & Honey; Ruth Gordon in The Matchmaker; and dozens more whose names have since faded from the limelight.  

A training advisor for the eastern division of the National Ski Patrol, Kuhn also taught a hands-on first aid class at Sullivan County Community College. Not content with standard drills in CPR and bandaging, he used Simulaids—simulated chest wounds, broken bones, burns, head wounds and puncture wounds, all made out of vinyl. 

Kuhn used these gory props to psychologically prepare his students for the sight of a severely injured victim. It worked. As a young Cub Scout in the course I was assigned a simulated ski-pole puncture; when the “victim’s” hand-held pump ran low on “blood” (water, thickening agent, food dye) and began to spew and spatter, I started to taste yesterday’s lunch rising out of my throat; it was me who needed rescue. Kuhn’s class was about as real as a first aid class gets without actually knifing a volunteer. 

Alan Blumenfeld, a retired menswear retailer from Philadelphia, now a resident of Voorhees, New Jersey, remembers meeting Kuhn in 1960 on a Jamaica (New York) High School Ski Club trip, an organization he co-founded. 

“Werner and I would ski together whenever he put on his skis, which wasn’t often due to the fact that he also ran the ski patrol,” he says. “When he asked me to become a junior member of the patrol, I jumped at the opportunity. He was a stickler for detail, impressing upon me the importance of being a strong skier rather than just showy, and the importance of being totally in control at all times. These were great lessons that served me well for over 50 years of skiing.”

Kuhn died in December 1982 in Harris, New York, after a short illness, at the age of 67, just one week after being reelected president of the Fallsburg Police Department Auxiliary. An avid skier and enthusiastic participant in community activities, it was curtains for one of the Catskills’ most legendary ski-area promoters.  

Jeff Blumenfeld, a resident of Boulder, Colorado, and native of Monticello, New York,  founded Blumenfeld and Associates PR, LLC, in 1980 and today represents Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort, Bromley Mountain Resort and Cranmore Mountain Resort. A skier since the age of five, he’s kept a log of every day he’s spent on the slopes since 1972, but that’s another story. 

From the FIS website:

The International Ski Federation - Fédération Internationale de Ski, Internationaler Ski Verband - is abbreviated in all languages as FIS.

FIS was founded on the 18th of February in 1910 when 22 delegates from 10 countries joined together to form in the International Skiing Commission in Christiania (NOR) and served from 1910 to 1924. The group became formally known as the International Ski Federation on 2nd February 1924 during the first Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix, France with 14 member nations. Today, 123 National Ski Associations comprise the membership of FIS.

Whilst the existence of skiing as means of transport is very ancient, its practice as a sport is relatively recent. It was not developed in Norway until after 1850, when the first races were held around the town of Christiania, which later became the city of Oslo. From 1870 onwards, the Alpine countries were in turn affected by the rapid expansion of skiing as a sport: the first competitions in Germany in 1879, the foundation of the first Swiss Club in 1893 at Glaris initiated by Christoph Iselin. National Ski Associations appeared in turn in Russia (1896), Czechoslovakia (1903), the United States (1904), Austria and Germany (1905) and Norway, Finland and Sweden (1908). From 1910 to 1924, the International Skiing Commission strove to monitor the development of competitive skiing throughout the world. In 1924, at the time of the first Olympic Winter Games, this Commission gave birth to the Federation International de Ski.

For more information on the past International Ski Congresses, see here.

MANCHESTER CENTER, VT  – To a millennial, skiing history is Bode Miller. To those a bit older, the sport has a rich 150-year-plus history in its modern era, with ancient roots that stretch back 10,000 years to its likely birthplace in the Altay Prefecture of China.

The International Skiing History Association (ISHA), the non-profit association that preserves the rich heritage of skiing worldwide, presented its first Steward of Skiing History Award to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum, based in Ishpeming, Michigan. Accepting the award on behalf of the Hall of Fame was Justin Koski, executive director. ISHA president Seth Masia presented the honor during the Hall of Fame’s 2018 Snowsport History Celebration and annual induction festivities, held at the Squaw Valley | Alpine Meadows ski resort in Olympic Valley, Calif., from April 12-15.    

In addition to a plaque, the Hall of Fame award will be covered in an upcoming issue of Skiing History, ISHA’s bimonthly magazine that covers the sport’s illustrious past, and through social media.

In accepting the honor, Koski said, “Since 1954, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame has worked hard to keep skiing history relevant and exciting, while ensuring that the stories, lives and contributions of our honored Hall of Fame members are told and remembered. We’re grateful that our efforts are appreciated by ISHA and the industry.”  

Adds Masia, “Through years of collaboration with ISHA and other regional museums and organizations, the Hall has established itself as the permanent and perpetual home to skiing history's legends. It is by simple virtue of who they are and what they do, that the ISHA board of directors chose them for this honor.” 

Established in early 2018, the Stewards of Skiing History Award honors museums and other organizations that share the heritage, history and legacy of skiing with the world.

In addition to publishing Skiing History six times a year in print and online, ISHA also maintains skiinghistory.org, the internet’s most extensive website for information about the sport’s history, and presents annual awards for lifetime achievement and the year’s best ski history books, films and creative media.

单兆鉴被国际滑雪历史协会（ISHA）授予"滑雪历史研究终身成就奖”项

The following article was published in the Chinese “Altay News” on March 28, 2018:

The International Skiing History Association held its 2018 ISHA Week in Squaw Valley, California on March 19-23, 2018. Mr. Shan Zhaojian of China received ISHA’s 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest award given at the award ceremony on March 23. ISHA recognized him as the “father of modern skiing” in China.

Over one hundred scholars, former athletes and devoted ski industry veterans who have contributed to ski history in journalism, photography, film, radio and television from different parts of the world gathered together for this annual award ceremony. ISHA president Mr. Seth Masia presented the award to Mr. Shan Zhaojian. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Shan expressed his profound gratitude for this honor and promised to continue his efforts in promoting the ancient ski culture.

Mr. Shan Zhaojian has been passionate about the skiing since his childhood years and became China’s first National Nordic Champion in the 1950s. Since his retirement he has continuously devoted his time to promoting the sport. In the last decade, he has led the research into the history and origin of skiing in the Altay region of China. With his extensive effort in searching for the ancient origin of skiing, he presented evidence showing that the ancient skiing culture might be from the Altay Prefecture in Xinjiang, China. Thus the study concluded that “Altay is original rising sun of human skiing place.” Mr. Ayiken Jaishan -assistant to Mr. Shan — demonstrated a pair of ancient wooden skis, wrapped in horse hair, used by humans for hunting in ancient China. The Chinese delegation received a standing ovation for their presence at the ceremony.

Mr. Shan is China’s first National Skiing Champion and has engaged in skiing sports for over 60 years. He served as director of skiing department of National Sports Committee in China, Secretary General of Chinese Skiing Association and the Technical Director of Asian Winter Biathlonunion Skiing Department. He also was the technical adviser of Chinese Skiing Associations, vice president of ski area management, and head coach of northern ski areas in China. He was inducted as honorable citizen of Altay region.

Mr. Shan currently sits on the Professional Committee of Ice and Snow Culture for Popular Culture Society of China, he also serves as consultant for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The International Skiing Organization awarded him a medal and certificate for his contribution to the world of skiing on March 5, 2010. At the 2017 Winter Olympics, Mr. Shan received an award as an outstanding contribution to “Friend of Winter Olympics.”

Translated into English by ISHA director Betty Tung. Click here to see the original article, with photos:

Orginal Article Link 

Charges of sexual abuse come to light in Austria, Canada. By John Fry

The #MeToo movement has come to skiing in a swirl of proof and denial. 

Nicola Werdenigg—Austria’s women’s national downhill champion in 1975 when she was teenager Nicola Spiess—has charged that she was sexually molested during her years as a competitor. Though she refuses to cite names, the Tyrol State Office of Criminal Investigation is looking into the 59-year-old grandmother’s allegations. 

A few months before Werdenigg’s searing confession, across the Atlantic Ocean in Quebec, a magistrate found a Canadian junior women’s ski coach guilty of 37 criminal charges related to sexual assaults on young racers in the 1990s. Nine women have publicly testified against Bertrand Charest, 52. He has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. 

AUSTRIAN ACCUSERS

In November of last year, Werdernigg publicly disclosed in the newspaper Der Standard that while attending a ski academy run by a pedophile, she had been raped. She disclosed also that she had been fondled by a ski-manufacturing executive, and had witnessed abuses of other young racers. 

According to Werdenigg, a second former Austrian racer has reported to Der Standard about sexual assaults in the 1970s. “We were fair game,” said the athlete, who wants to remain anonymous. “It happened to everyone. Often alcohol was involved.”

The Bavarian newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung headlined that “a climate of abuse and a culture of looking away” existed in Austrian ski racing. Former racers report serious sexual assault and rape in ski academies and on the World Cup circuit. Even the name of the iconic Austrian ski hero Toni Sailer, Olympic triple gold medalist and head coach of the Austrian national team in the 1970s, has been dragged into the scandal. 

Among the Austrian coaches was the legendary Charly Kahr, who coached the women’s team in the period 1966–1970. Three former racers have accused Kahr of sexual misconduct and rape. Kahr, 86, has denied the charges. His attorney says the allegations “are pulled out of thin air…it’s outrageous now, after 50 years, to drag Charly Kahr through the dirt.” The Austrian Ski Federation, Österreichischer  Skiverband (ÖSV), says it has no knowledge of the accusations. 

National Ski Associations Shamed

The disclosures have proven deeply embarrassing to national ski associations. Alpine Canada “failed” its racers, admits board chair Martha Hall Findlay. “We are profoundly sorry.”

In Austria, the powerful ÖSV was criticized for insensitivity when it declared itself unable to investigate Werdenigg’s claims unless she provides names and details. “It is not appropriate to issue ultimatums,” said Defense and Sports Minister Hans Peter Doskozil. “If someone (Werdenigg) comes out and dares to take this step at personal risk, then we should expect sensitivity in dealing with the person concerned.” 

Werdenigg says that it was not her intention to publicly pillory the perpetrators, but to reveal what happened so that young people will have the strength to provide information in case it happens to them. 

Influence of Ski Companies

Werdenigg’s case has been intensely covered in German-language European newspapers and magazines, and she’s been interviewed on television. She stated that when she was 16 two men got her drunk, and a teammate then raped her. “I did not talk to anyone about it because I was so ashamed,” she says. 

In the Der Standard interview, Werdenigg recalls being touched inappropriately by a ski-manufacturing executive. “An unappetizing old man, he asked me to sit on his knees and touched me as it should not have been. He said he needed racers like me on his team. I got up and left.” 

Ski companies strongly influenced decision-making in the sport. In the 1970s, for the first time, financial contracts were at stake. Racers and trainers were rewarded for their actions.

Vonn, Moser-Proell: Differing Reactions 

“The time has arrived for women to stand up,” said American downhill superstar Lindsey Vonn in reference to sexual crimes against young U.S. gymnasts. At a World Cup race at Cortina in February, according to Andrew Dempf on Therepulic.com, Vonn said, “Thankfully I haven’t experienced any of that in ski racing,” adding, “this is an opportunity for us to change how women are treated in the world.”

Annemarie Moser-Proell, whose number of World Cup wins is second only to Vonn’s among women racers, appeared unsympathetic. Proell was a teammate of Werdenigg. “When I was racing, nothing like this happened,” she said in a televised interview. “I would have been able to defend myself. 

“It’s not unusual for racers on the team to become couples,” continued Proell. “It happened with Rosi Mittermaier and Christian Neureuther, and Marlies Schild and Benny Reich. There was no rape. There are always two.”

Proell expressed sorrow for coaches, supervisors and service people “who have given everything and are now put in a bad light.” Unsurprisingly, she received a verbal lashing in the social media. But she was supported by Alois Bumberger, who coached Nicola Spiess in the late 1970s. Bumberger said he was surprised by the allegations made by his former racer. He is quoted as saying that he heard nothing about sexual assaults, and no racer had ever spoken up.

She Grew Up in a Skiing Family

Nicola’s parents ran the ski school at the west Tyrolean ski resort of Mayrhofen, which at one time employed 170 instructors, and had a top-notch kindergarten. Her mother, Erika “Riki” Mahringer, won two bronze medals at the 1948 Winter Olympics at St. Moritz, and two silver medals at the 1950 FIS World Championships in Aspen. Her father, Ernst Spiess, coached national team women, and was race director at the 1964 and 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck. Her brother, Uli Spiess, won two World Cup downhills.

Nicola herself was a prodigy. At the age of 16 she already was on the Austrian national team, registering four World Cup podium appearances her first season. She missed by 0.21 seconds a medal in the 1976 Olympic downhill, edged out by America’s Cindy Nelson, who won the bronze. 

Werdennig retired from ski racing in 1981 and joined the family ski school, which no longer exists. She married Erwin Werdenigg in 1984, and has a son and two daughters. She lives in Vienna. 

She suffered from an eating disorder. “There were many female racers who had severe bulimia. I was one of them. I see it in the context of the self-image that we women skiers developed under the sexist abuse of power.

“Yes,” said Werdenigg, “maybe I should have turned my back on the ski circuit earlier. But don’t forget our great emotional dependence on the sport…the sport for which one lives, for which one makes everything, for which one makes sacrifices.

“Today I am a grandmother, I have everything behind me, it’s finished, I’m not angry anymore.”

Toni Sailer Redux

The #MeToo movement recently led Der Standard to re-visit a well-known scandal that happened about the same time that Spiess-Werdennig was molested. The newspaper revealed how, in 1974, the Austrian government intervened to extricate from Poland the nation’s iconic champion, Olympic triple gold medalist Toni Sailer (d. 2009), after he was charged in a notorious rape case. 

At the time, Sailer was the head coach of the Austrian alpine team and was in Zakopane for a World Cup race. He became entangled in a drunken episode in a hotel room with two Yugoslav ski servicemen. A part-time prostitute was violently raped. The Austrian government prevailed on Poland to get Sailer out of the country before he was jailed. Sailer claimed he was set up.

The best perspective on the entire affair comes from Austrian sports historian, Rudolf Müllner. You can read it online at https://derstandard.at/2000072416580/Das-Bild-wird-jetzt-veraendert-das-...

Canadian coach jailed

Between 1991 and 1998, Bertrand Charest coached the Canadian national junior ski team, the Quebec Ski Team, Team Laurentians and the Mont-Tremblant Ski Club. He was originally arrested in 2015 for sexual assault and exploitation of young racers, and has already served five years of a 12-year sentence. Charest is appealing the sentence. He denies the allegations, but remains in prison. 

Last June, in a packed courtroom in St. Jerome in the foothills of the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal, Quebec court Judge Sylvain Lépine described Charest as a “predator” who had total control over the girls and young women he was coaching. Nine of them, who were between 12 and 18 years old at the time of their molestation, came forward to testify.

According to the Star.com, which covered the trial in St. Jerome, one former Canadian ski racer testified that Charest took her to have an abortion when she was about 15. She’d become pregnant after having unprotected sex with him on numerous occasions. The woman, whose identity is under publication ban like the other witnesses, recalled that she was young and in love with her coach, and that Charest advised her to keep their relationship quiet because he would go to prison if it became known.

Judge Lépine said the victims were vulnerable and compromised because they were afraid to lose Charest as a coach. The judge said that Alpine Canada had failed to protect its athletes, and that the organization chose to close its eyes to what the athletes were saying about Charest. 

Canadian Ski Federation Apologizes

In a statement, Alpine Canada board chair Martha Hall Findlay said, “Today, after a long and very difficult time for the victims and families, Bertrand Charest was sentenced to 12 years in prison, for things that he did over 20 years ago. 

“At the time, Alpine Canada—instead of being there for the athletes, instead of providing support when these activities were discovered—put itself first, not the victims. In doing so, Alpine Canada failed them.” Findlay said Alpine Canada has changed its policies and procedures to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. 

The #MeToo movement is not believed to have generated any actions against the U.S. Ski Team. The nonprofit organization SafeSport, created last year and based in Denver, offers athletes and trainers the opportunity to report a concern or a violation, and to research past disciplinary decisions.  

John Fry is the author of The Story of Modern Skiing, about the revolution in equipment, technique, resorts, Olympics, media and environment that transformed the sport after World War II.

At a recent conference in China, historians explored the ancient birth of skiing and how it spread across the continents. By SETH MASIA

As host of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, China seeks a major presence in skiing. President Xi Jinping has proposed to invest $400 billion in new ski resorts, and to recruit 340 million winter sports enthusiasts before the 2022 Games begin in Beijing. If successful, that would be 25 percent of China’s population, generating about $100 billion in annual revenue. China would have the world’s largest ski industry.

China may be the future of the sport. The Chinese government also promotes the concept that its Altai Mountains are the origin point of skiing, some 8,000 to 12,000 years ago.

Regular readers of Skiing History are familiar with Nils Larsen’s film, Skiing in the Shadow of Genghis Khan, which received a 2009 ISHA Film Award, and his article “Origin Story” in the May-June 2017 issue. Larsen was among the first to introduce to the West the work of Shan Zhaojian, Wang Bo, Ayiken Jiashan and others, who have been tracing the history of today’s traditional Tuvan skiing culture back to prehistoric origins in the forested mountains of Central Asia. 

In January, I attended the 2018 Ancient Skiing Academic Conference in Altay City, China. The conference focus was twofold: outlining recent research on the origins of skiing in Central Asia, and establishing cultural exchanges between the Tuvan hunting-ski culture and the Telemark tradition of skiing.

Recent work by archaeologists and anthropologists shows that rock art across the region, including much of southern Siberia, depicts hunters on snowshoes and skis, dating back as far as 7,000 years. Indirect evidence suggests hunters may have begun to use snowshoes and skis at the end of the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago. Knut Helskog of the University of Tromsø in Norway noted that human habitation goes back 40,000 years in northern Russia and 9,500 years in Scandinavia, with more than 300 petroglyph sites across the vast region—including at least 100 dating from the Stone Age. Helskog posits a natural progression from short wooden snowshoes to longer implements suitable for floating on deep snow. At some point the bearing surface grows big enough to allow gliding. Climbing skins are the next development. Meanwhile, the spear and bow serve as ski poles. 

At Zalavruga in Russian Karelia, near the shore of the Arctic bay called the White Sea, a dramatic petroglyph shows skiers killing a moose or elk. We know the hunters are on skis, not snowshoes, because the artist(s) depict the tracks in the snow: tromping uphill with pole-marks alternating on both side of the track, and gliding downhill with pole plants widely spaced. The tactic depicted was to climb above the herd, then ski downhill at high speed to overtake the prey, half-buried in deep snow. In the Altay region, elk hunters on fur skis use the same technique today. According to Siberian rock-art specialist Elena Miklashevich of Kemerovo State University, the Zalavruga petroglyphs may be as old as 7,000 years (other experts suggest 5,500). In Southwest Siberia, along the Tom River, one petroglyph skier is depicted carrying what may be a lasso.

None of this should be surprising. As early as 1890, Fridtjof Nansen, in his book On Skis Across Greenland, cited linguistic evidence that skiing originated in Central Asia, along an arc between what is now Kazakhstan and Lake Baikal. This region includes the north slope of the Altai range. Nansen suggested that as skiing hunters followed herds of elk and reindeer, they spread northward and then east toward the Bering Strait and west along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, where ancestors of the Saami (Laplanders) brought skiing to Scandinavia around 5,000 years ago. 

Since around 2005, this view of skiing’s origin has come to prevail among anthropologists, especially in view of the survival of a Stone Age skiing culture among the Mongol Tuvan tribe of the Altai mountains. The very existence of Tuvan skiing was broadcast to Western audiences by Nils Larsen’s 2008 film and Mark Jenkins’ National Geographic article in 2012. But Shan Zhaojian first posited the Altai as the birthplace of skiing back in 1993.

Modern Tuvans make their skis with hand tools, notably the adze. Today, of course, they use steel tools, but metal tools have been available since the Bronze Age, which began in this region about 5,000 years ago. Before that, the stone adze was an efficient tool for turning logs into smooth planks, and so we can easily visualize smooth-surfaced skis going back 10,000 or 12,000 years. Remember that the word “ski” originally meant a split of wood—a plank or board. When skiing is prime, we still reach for our powder boards.

China’s skiing Tuvans are careful to point out that they no longer kill elk—the entire mountain region is a designated conservation area. They will admit to catch-and-release hunting, dropping a lasso over the prey’s antlers, though that practice isn’t kosher either. 

This skiing culture is said to have migrated into Xinjiang province about 400 years ago, from Tuva in southern Siberia. Since 2006 a ski race, first organized by Shan, has been one of many activities preserving the old culture. This year, more than 100 young men turned out for the race, run in two laps at the General’s Mountain ski resort outside Altay City. Each lap is about a mile: uphill, downhill, uphill and downhill again, with a total vertical of about 1,000 feet. The racers make their own skis—race skis are built for running, shorter and lighter than skis made for hunting. They’re covered with horsehide only on the bottoms, to save weight. The soft hair of cold-weather Altai horses glides much faster than Western-style climbing skins. 

Also in attendance at the Altay conference was a delegation of about 20 Norwegians, comprising a telemark racing team led by Lars Ove Wangenstein Berge. With the collaboration of Andrew Clarke, chair of the FIS Telemark committee, and Shan’s group, the team is trying to get telemark racing included as a demonstration sport for the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Berge organized a parallel-GS telemark race at General’s Mountain, won by a couple of his teenage protégés. Berge and Shan would like to establish a torch relay from Morgedal, Norway—birthplace of modern skiing during the 19^th century—to Altay City and on to Beijing for the 2022 opening ceremony.

The Chinese government fully supports the rapid development of alpine skiing as a healthy family sport. The country already boasts more than 100 small and medium-size lift-served ski areas. Altay’s Mayor Yu told me that local kids get free ski lessons and rental gear at General’s Mountain during school holidays, and estimates that 60 to 70 percent of the town’s population has tried skiing. The mountain has replaced its painfully slow old fixed-grip lifts with two new high-speed hybrid “chondolas,” one of which extends across the valley into new terrain to expand the resort by about 50 percent.

All of this skiing development is on government-owned land, with little or no delay for permitting or environmental studies. The central government does what it plans to do, without much feedback from local populations. Xinjiang province is home to half a dozen ethnic groups. The two largest—Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs, who consider themselves the original inhabitants, and Chinese-speaking Han Chinese, who dominate the government—have clashed in bloody riots as recently as 2014. To forestall ethnic conflict, all public gatherings are attended by riot police; government buildings, banks and hotels have barricades and tight security against real or imagined terrorists. It’s an odd cultural environment: a diverse population, free to travel around China and abroad, with a polyglot educated class well aware of news from around the world—all under an authoritarian regime led largely by engineers. Welcome to the Chinese century.   

Seth Masia is president of the International Skiing History Association, and represented ISHA at the 2018 Ancient Skiing Academic Conference in China.