Events

Sun Valley, Idaho, will host the 30th annual ISHA Awards Banquet next March.

Mark these dates: ISHA will hold its 30th annual ISHA Awards Banquet on March 24, 2022, at Sun Valley! We’ll renew our long-standing Skiing History Week collaboration with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, which will hold its induction banquet on March 26. In addition, ISHA will send a contingent to the NESM’s Hannes Schneider Meister Cup Race at North Conway, New Hampshire on March 5, followed by the HOF’s Eastern Banquet that evening at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

We were preparing to hold the 2020 Skiing History Week at Sun Valley when the Covid-19 pandemic forced its cancellation. We’re delighted to return now to Ketchum, Sun Valley and Mt. Baldy, which have hosted so many ISHA events in years past.

ISHA Hires New Executive Director

ISHA is pleased to announce that Janet White will assume the duties of Executive Director on August 1. Janet’s roots in skiing run deep: after graduating cum laude at the University of New Hampshire, she joined The Ski Market as skiwear manager and eight years later supervised staff training for 500 employees at 30 retail locations. For the next 20 years she worked as vice president for sales, education and business development for companies selling management software to nonprofits, including schools, universities and philanthropic organizations. Janet serves on the board of directors of the New England Ski Museum and has attended a number of ISHA events. “Janet brings us a unique set of skills in personnel and project management, back-end operations, sales and partner development,” said ISHA Chairman Rick Moulton. “And she’s steeped in skiing culture, with long relationships among ISHA’s existing partners. She’s a perfect fit and will step right into professional management of ISHA’s programs.”

Ken Hugessen Elected to ISHA Board

Toronto-based management consultant Ken Hugessen has been elected to ISHA’s Board of Directors. Ken grew up skiing in Montreal and raced both Nordic and Alpine events for the Sedbergh School, Bishop’s College School and Lower Canada College. He holds an Honors B.S. from Sir George Williams University, an M.A. from Dalhousie University and an M.S. from the University of Chicago. In 1974 he joined Mercer Inc. and for three decades managed Mercer practices in Toronto, Calgary, Chicago and New York, rising to managing director. He continued to ski, racing on winning teams at the Canadian Ski Marathon and the Laurentian Loppet. In 2006 he founded Hugessen Consulting, advising boards on executive compensation and related performance, governance and shareholder matters.

ISHA Is a Public Charity

ISHA was founded in 1991 as a private charity by Mason Beekley. After a three-year review, as of March 31, 2021, we are a public charity under IRS rules. A number of family and institutional foundations have already used the new classification to donate in support of the ISHA mission. 

MUSEUM NEWS

The Canadian Ski Hall of Fame has announced its class of 2019. Induction, delayed due to the pandemic, was held in June 2021. New members include:

Athlete category:

Chandra Crawford (photo above), cross-country racer, three-time Olympian (2006, 2010 and 2014) and gold medalist in 2006.

Ashleigh McIvor, ski cross and freestyle competitor, 2010 Olympic gold medalist in ski cross and four-time Winter X Games competitor.

Jennifer Heil, freestyle and moguls, Olympic gold medalist (2006) and silver medalist (2010). Four-time World Champion. Five-time overall World Cup Champion. Canada’s female athlete of the year in 2007 and 2011.

Lauren Woolstencroft, Canada’s most decorated Paralympic athlete, eight gold medals, with a record five won at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games.

Builder:

Mike Irwin, former Canadian Alpine Ski Team member, past chair of board of directors Alpine Canada, Chief of Race for World Cup events.

Réal Boulanger (deceased), founder of Mont Sutton, co-founder of Quebec Ski Area Owner’s Association.

William B. Schreiber, member of the Canadian Ski Patrol for 50 years.

Builder and Coach:

Malcolm Hunter, 1972 Olympian, 25 years of service with Cross-Country Canada, including two-time executive director.

Ski Instructor:

Lorne McFadgen (deceased), ski school director at Talisman, instructor at Whistler Blackcomb, first inductee into the Blackcomb Hall of Fame. 

During the Covid19 shutdown, ski resorts went into shock, and at this writing have not yet recovered. Nonprofit organizations of all sorts faced financial crisis as corporate sponsors retrenched. ISHA faced a cash-flow crunch: we couldn’t be sure of the revenue to support production and mailing of the magazine, the website and the next round of ISHA Awards.

And so, in October, we asked ISHA members to dig deep and contribute early to our annual fourth-quarter fundraising campaign. And you did! By year’s end, ISHA’s loyal and generous donors beat the previous fundraising record by 15 percent, contributing more than $136,000 in gifts by individuals and families. And most of our corporate sponsors renewed their commitment to ISHA’s mission.

As a result ISHA completed its fiscal year with only half the deficit we forecast last March, at the beginning of the Covid19 shutdown. On behalf of fundraising chair John McMurtry, and campaign leaders Christin Cooper and Penny Pitou, ISHA thanks its donor-members, its sponsors and the dedicated readers of Skiing History.

Look for details of ISHA’s fundraising and financial status in the upcoming March-April issue.

ISHA Awards 2021

ISHA’s Awards Committed has announced the winners of the 2021 ISHA Awards, honoring the best works of history published during 2020. They are:

Ullr Awards

 Maurice Isserman for The Winter Army, a history of the 10th Mountain Division.
 Janez Kavar for Americani na Magartu 1945, recounting a 10th Mountain Division race in Slovenia.
 Maurice Woerhlé for Peuples du Ski, a 10,000 year history of the skiing peoples of Eurasia.

Skade Awards

 Donald A. Johnston for Hotel Kosciusko, a history of the Australian ski resort.
 John W. Lundin for Skiing Sun Valley, a history of the resort from its beginning.
 Robin Morning for For the Love of It, the story of Roma and Dave McCoy.
 Cathleen Norman with Alan Henceroth for Arapahoe Basin, a history of the ski area.
 Nancy Stone for Buck Hill, a history of the ski area.
 Martin Rhomberg and Christof Thöny for Sichtbar, Eugen Heimhuber’s photos of the Arlberg, 1900 to 1930.
 Ingrid Wicken for Lost Ski Areas of Tahoe and Donner

Baldur Award

 Jimmy Petterson for Skiing Around the World II, stories about exotic ski areas.

Film Awards

 Kate Leimbuehler, Jeremy Snyder and Hans Rosenwinkel for “Fresh Tracks,” about pioneer amputee skier Paul Leimbuehler.
 Claire Abbe Brown, Scott Lyons and Susie Theis for “The American Downhiller,” the story of U.S. men who won classic downhills.

The Awards will be presented during an online event to be held in April. To see the 2020 Awards Presentation Program, and for details about ISHA Awards, go to https://skiinghistory.org/events Meanwhile, watch for reviews of the winning books and films in the Media Reviews section of the magazine.

Changing of the guard

Kathleen James joined ISHA in 2009 as editor of Skiing History. She expanded her role in 2015, overseeing ISHA’s day-to-day operations, including membership services and fundraising. The continuing success of the magazine and ISHA’s infrastructure is largely due to Kathleen’s wisdom, diligence and expertise.

Two years ago, Kathleen was elected to the Vermont General Assembly, representing her hometown of Manchester and several nearby communities. She was re-elected in November 2020. With increasing responsibility in the Education Committee and several caucuses—focusing on climate action, tourism, and the rural economy—she recently resigned from ISHA to focus on her political work. If you’d like to reach Kathleen, she still receives email at kathleen@skiinghistory.org.

In 2019, ISHA hired Kathe Dillmann as Business and Events Manager, and Laurie Glover as Membership Services and Marketing Manager. They may be contacted at kathe@skiinghistory.org and laurie@skiinghistory.org. They’ve now smoothly assumed all of Kathleen’s administrative duties and I’m sure readers communicating with the office will find them every bit as helpful and informative as Kathleen was.

Throughout the past year, Greg Ditrinco has shared editing duties at the magazine with Kathleen. With this issue, Greg takes the reins. Greg knows ski-magazine publishing inside and out. He joined Snow Country in 1995, then worked at SKI Magazine from 1999 to 2017, first as executive editor and then as editor-in-chief. And he’s familiar with ISHA, as he won an ISHA Award in 2011 for the 75th Anniversary Issue of SKI Magazine. Contact Greg at greg@skiinghistory.org.

Frankly, we’re still figuring out how to fill the hole left when John Fry passed on a year ago. But we’re confident of maintaining the very high standards John set for the magazine.

Late deliveries

Many readers didn’t receive the November-December issue until January. The magazine was mailed December 9, but got caught up in the widespread holiday postal delays. Next year we’ll mail that issue before Thanksgiving. So sorry for the inconvenience. 

Photo above: In receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of Der Schneehase, editor Ivan Wagner acknowledged the book’s previous editors, going back to 1924.

The 28th annual ISHA Awards were presented during an online ceremony on November 7. Originally scheduled for March 26 in Sun Valley, the banquet was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

During the 90-minute Zoom program, awards were presented to the authors or producers of ten books, two films and a website that made significant contributions to our understanding of skiing history during calendar year 2019. All but two of the awardees logged on, from across Europe and North America, to accept their trophies.

In addition, a lifetime achievement award was presented to Der Schneehase, the annual publication of the Swiss Academic Ski Club, now in its 40th edition. Schneehase editor Ivan Wagner accepted on behalf of SAS. A special award went to the Holding family of Sun Valley, for their preservation of Sun Valley’s skiing history.

It was an interesting evening as the awardees, who comprise some of the world’s leading ski historians, discussed their winning projects. Highlights included:

• The editors of Skispuren (Ski Tracks), Rudolf Müllner and Christof Thöny, noted that skiing history is an immature academic discipline and called for more conferences involving researchers on both sides of the Atlantic.

• Philipp Strobl, co-editor with Aneta Podkalicka of Leisure Cultures and the Making of Modern Ski Resorts, was surprised to learn through his research how interconnected skiers were a century ago around the world. Instructors travelled seasonally between hemispheres, and transported and taught skiing culture wherever they went.

• Isak Lidström, author of Heja Persson! Sámi Triumph in the Vasaloppet, described parallels between the experiences of indigenous athletes in Scandinavia and North America, in their confrontation of the stereotype of “natural” or racial-based talent.

• Jeremy Davis, author of Lost Ski Areas of the Berkshires, noted that since founding his New England Lost Ski Areas Project (nelsap.org) in 1998 he has documented more than 700 closed ski areas—including Roger Picard’s Thunderbolt rope tow, which ran on Mt. Greylock for just three weeks in 1958.

• Chris Diamond, author of Ski Inc. 2020, explained that no business publication has covered the astonishing success of rapidly consolidating ski resort operations over the past five years. His co-author Andy Bigford remarked that, counterintuitively, consolidation has been a boon for consumers, and that multi-resort mega-passes appear to be helping people to ski during the COVID-19 epidemic.

• Jeff Conroy and Patrick Creadon, producers of Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story, recounted the experience of interviewing 92-year-old Warren Miller at his home, just eight months before he died. Warren told his entire life story in nine hours over the course of three days —while some of the skiers who starred in his films visited for a final reunion.

• Patrick Thorne, creator of DrySlopeNews.com, recalled learning to ski on a dry slope in 1970 before heading to the Alps on a school holiday.

• Ivan Wagner, editor of Der Schneehase, acknowledged the five editors who have produced 40 volumes since 1924: Walter Amstutz, Arnold Kaech, Kaspar Wolf, Raoul Imseng and Martin Hodler.

To watch the 90-minute program, and read about the award-winning works, use the links at skiinghistory.org/events.

Postponed: Skiing History Week 2021

Due to the ongoing spike in COVID-19 cases, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame will postpone its 2021 induction banquet and related events, originally scheduled for April 7 to 11, 2021, at Snowmass, Colorado. Revised plans were in development at press time.

ISHA will modify plans for its 29th Annual ISHA Awards banquet, originally scheduled for April 8 at Snowmass. ISHA will announce new dates for the 2021 awards before the end of this year.

The Hall of Fame and ISHA plan to hold their 2022 banquets in Sun Valley and return to Snowmass in 2023.

Joe Jay Jalbert Joins ISHA Board

Joe Jay Jalbert was unimously elected to the ISHA Board of Directors at our November online meeting.

Jalbert began skiing at age five in Mullan, Idaho and dominated PNSA racing as a four-time Junior Nationals Team member. While studying at the University of Washington on an academic scholarship, he was recruited to ski and captained the UW ski team. He raced internationally prior to the debut of the World Cup and narrowly missed a spot on the 1968 Olympic team.

Jalbert landed a role as ski double for Robert Redford in the 1969 classic film Downhill Racer, and learned to shoot film by carrying a camera down the Lauberhorn course. He won his first Emmy for cinematography in 1971, for a CBS network feature from Sun Valley with Jean-Claude Killy and Peggy Fleming. In 1972 he launched Jalbert Productions International, and now has more than 800 productions to his credit.

In 1975, he won the first of 16 category titles at the International Ski Film Festival, taking best of show a year later with Just a Matter of Time, a documentary on the classic 1976 Olympic downhill matchup at Innsbruck between Franz Klammer and Bernhard Russi. That film would springboard Jalbert Productions into the global spotlight, starting a series of four IOC Olympic and 13 FIS World Championship official films. He distributed his films through broadcast syndication, a field in which he remains an industry leader. For over 20 years, Jalbert produced official films for the U.S. Ski Team.

Jalbert has won more than 30 international film awards. In 2002 he was honored as the FIS Journalist of the Year, and in 2007 received ISHA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

2020 Fundraising Drive: Help Us Meet Our Goal!

ISHA’s annual year-end fundraising drive kicked off on October 1, and by Thanksgiving individual donations were running about 10 percent ahead of the previous record pace during the 2019 campaign.

This is gratifying. In October we told ISHA’s members that, due the economic impact of COVID-19, we forecast roughly a 20 percent drop in the revenues we need to support publication of Skiing History magazine, the website skiinghistory.org, the annual ISHA Awards program and other programs in support of our nonprofit mission. We asked that members contribute early rather than wait for the end of the tax year, and you responded. Thank you!

Nonetheless, ISHA will run an operating deficit in 2020 and we have dipped into investment reserves to meet current expenses. We need a strong finish to meet our goal. If you’ve already sent in a gift, thank you! If you have not, please do so before December 31. ISHA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and contributions are tax-deductible for U.S. taxpayers.

To give, please donate online at skiinghistory.org/donate or use the envelope bound into this issue.

Many members have asked how to give in memory of the late John Fry. Simply write his name on the memo line on your check, or if donating online, check the In Memory box and enter John Fry. Questions? Call our office: 802.375.1105. 

John Fry Tribute Video: Now online

ISHA has produced a 10-minute biographical video honoring the late John Fry, longtime president and chairman of ISHA, editor of SKI Magazine, founding editor of Snow Country and honored member of the U.S. and Canadian Halls of Fame. Produced by Rick Moulton, the video features a 2006 interview with Fry, with plenty of archival photos. See the video at tinyurl.com/JohnFry.

Eight snowsport pioneers were elected to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 in October. Due to the pandemic, plans for an induction ceremony are pending.

Bobbie Burns began designing and producing skis for K2 in the 1960s, eventually creating the skis that Marilyn Cochran used in 1969 to become the first American to win an alpine World Cup discipline title (GS, 1969). In 1974, Burns launched his own company and began making The Ski, one of the most famous freestyle skis of the era. Nicknamed “The Snow Goose” for his loose style in the bumps, Burns was an iconic founder of hot-dog freestyle.

Brian Fairbank, chairman of the Fairbank Group (Bromley, Cranmore, Jiminy Peak), is a pioneer in resort sustainability. He installed a wind turbine at Jiminy and then added solar, making Jiminy the first U.S. resort to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy. In 2008, NSAA recognized his effort with its Golden Eagle award.

Holly Flanders was one of the most dominant U.S. downhill racers of her era. In 1982, she was second in the women’s World Cup standings, the highest DH ranking for any American woman in more than a decade. From 1987 to 2016, she ran a popular series of women’s ski-instruction workshops at Park City, Wolf Mountain and Canyons in Utah.

Alison Owen was a dominant nordic racer in the late 1970s, becoming the first American to win a FIS cross country World Cup race in 1978, a U.S. women’s mark that stood for 33 years. A year later, she finished second at the prestigious Holmenkollen 10K in Oslo. The eight-time U.S. champion retired in 1981 and became a coach in Sun Valley.

Howard Peterson was a longtime influential leader with the U.S. Ski Team and a pivotal voice in bringing the Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City in 2002. As secretary general of USSA in the late 1980s, Peterson pushed the U.S. Olympic Committee to select a candidate city based on its willingness to develop legacy facilities and training venues that could be used long after the Games. A Maine native, he also co-founded the National Ski Touring Association (now the Cross-Country Ski Areas Association. He died in May 2020.

Kristean Porter was a world champion and two-time overall World Cup title holder as a U.S. freestyle skier in the mid-1990s, excelling in aerials, ballet and moguls. She made her World Cup debut in 1989 and scored her first podium within a month. A year later, she picked up the first of four World Championship medals, taking bronze in aerials.

Hank Tauber raced for Middlebury College and then joined the U.S. Ski Team as a coach in 1967, rising through the ranks to U.S. alpine ski team director, a position he held from 1974 to 1979. Under his leadership, U.S. racers won eight Olympic and World Championship medals. From 1980 to 1984, he was president of Marker USA. He then acquired the worldwide Marker International and was chairman and CEO until 1998. In 1988 Tauber was elected a vice president, executive board and council member of FIS and served in that position until 2002. He was a founding trustee of the Switzerland-based Marc Hodler Foundation and was named an honorary lifetime member of FIS in 2002. In 1982 he received the Julius Blegen Award, U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s highest award for outstanding contribution to the sport of skiing.

Seth Wescott was a back-to-back Olympic champion, winning gold in snowboard cross in 2006 (Torino) and 2010 (Vancouver). In his career he won four X Games medals (one gold) and four World Championship medals (one gold). He also won the fabled Mount Baker Banked Slalom in 2019 and 2020, and co-owns Winterstick.

Oslo Olympians Honored in Oz

Snow Australia, the national governing body for competitive snow sports, has announced the first recipients of its Snow Australia Medal. The new award will celebrate the careers of athletes who represent the country at the highest level of the sport.

The inaugural honorees all competed for Australia at the 1952 Winter Olympics: Bob Arnott (alpine), Bill Day (alpine), Bruce Haslingden (cross country), Barry Patten (alpine) and Cedric Sloane (cross country).

The Oslo Olympics marked only the second time that Australia had sent a team to the Winter Games. Alpine and cross-country skiing were the sole snow-sport events on the Olympic program and the Aussies were amateurs with limited resources. They had to fit their training around work commitments, and for some the activities overlapped: Haslingden was a sheep rancher in Cooma, and wrangling herds was key to his workout regimen. Plus, few Australian ski areas had lifts in the early 1950s. Trudging up the slopes was a great way to stay fit, but not the best preparation for world-class competition.

For the 1952 Olympians, travelling to the Games involved a long and expensive six-week ship voyage. And when they finally raced, Australian athletes could not match their talented rivals from Europe. Austrian skiers dominated the alpine races and Scandinavian racers swept the podiums in cross country.

Bob Arnott later recalled the downhill, a challenging race run on very little snow, as the highlight of his Games. “I started off behind the Greek, there were probably one-minute intervals,” he said. “The Greek” was two-time Olympian Alexandros Vouxinos, who left the start hut just before Arnott, wearing bib 87.

“The start of the race was fairly straightforward: The Greek disappeared, and I was sent off,” Arnott continued. “Then we came to a traverse. It was fairly steep, and the Greek had fallen down the hill, and so I passed him. Then the same thing happened to me: I fell down the hill and he passed me. Then I got up and managed to pass him again with a schuss.” Arnott eventually crossed the line almost two minutes ahead of Vouxinos, who finished dead last.

Arnott, who died in 2016, is remembered not only for his racing career, but also for his 27-year-long tenure within the FIS. As a FIS official, he left a significant legacy in the classification system he conceived with American FIS delegate Bob Beattie: The “Bob Rule” is still at the core of the FIS points system used to rank skiers around the world today.

Over the next year, the Snow Australia medal will be presented to all athletes across alpine, cross-country, freestyle, snowboard, park and pipe, and Paralympic disciplines who during their careers have (1) finished in the top three at FIS World Cup or World Championship level, and/or (2) represented Australia at the Olympic or Paralympic Winter Games. Learn more at https://www.snow.org.au/legacy/medal/. 

SKI LIFE

SKI October 1973

This month ISHA launches its annual year-end fundraising campaign. Like any nonprofit, we’ll send out notices to our longtime supporters and new members alike, asking for holiday-season gifts—tax-deductible in the United States—to defray the costs of publishing our bimonthly Skiing History magazine, our website skiinghistory.org, the annual ISHA Awards, and outreach programs to recruit new members.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s been a difficult year for most nonprofits and for the donors who support them. Many individuals and businesses who normally contribute to favorite causes faced straitened times beginning in March. ISHA has been more fortunate than most—over the years our loyal members have provided sufficient support, so we went into the new recession with enough cash on hand to defray operational costs through this year. We experienced interruptions in several important revenue streams. We were forced to cancel our Skiing History Week events, including the annual ISHA Awards banquet, and some of our corporate sponsors, who lost their spring-skiing revenue, have had to cut back support until business picks up again.

ISHA ran a balanced budget in 2019, thanks to individual donors (who provided 50.7 percent of ISHA revenue with gifts over and above their membership dues), and some 60 corporate sponsors who provided 21.2 percent of revenue (membership dues accounted for 19.4 percent of revenue).

We will certainly not be able to operate in the black this year, and have already dipped into reserves held in investment accounts. In a typical year about 65 percent of individual donations come to us in November and December. This year, we ask that whatever you are able to give, you give early. When gifts come in during October rather than in late December, we are more easily able to run on operational revenue.  

ISHA Awards Banquet to be held at Snowmass, April 8, 2021

We are pushing ahead with plans to collaborate once again with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame to stage a series of events we call Skiing History Week. Dates this year will be April 7 to 11, at Snowmass, Colorado. ISHA plans a welcoming cocktail party and John Fry Memorial Lecture series on Wednesday, April 7, with our Awards Banquet on April 8. The Hall of Fame has scheduled its annual Induction Banquet for Saturday, April 10. Please mark your calendar and help us celebrate what we hope will mark the resumption of normal life in North American skiing.

Recruiting

ISHA would like to organize a network of local Skiing History Clubs across the country. We envision each club as a group of friends who meet occasionally for skiing and good talk about the sport and its traditions. We encourage lunches, cocktails, dinners, lectures, tall tales and outright lying (the older we get, the better we were). Longtime ISHA members, and some of our museum and retail partners, are eager to help organize events and venues. If you’d like to help build a local group, please email me. seth@skiinghistory.org.

We lost our long-time leader John Fry in January, at age 90. Three other ISHA board members have resigned this year due to health issues or time commitments elsewhere. We are down to 17 active board members, from a full complement of 23 (minimum is nine). ISHA depends critically on the committee work performed by its board of directors. If you have skills in finance, marketing, sales, communications, event planning or publishing, and would like to contribute time and expertise to ISHA’s success, please email me: seth@skiinghistory.org. 

New tax benefit for charitable donations

U.S. taxpayers should be aware of a new federal law providing tax benefits when you support the causes you care about, including ISHA. Under the CARES Act, all taxpayers are eligible to deduct up to $300 of charitable giving ($600 for a married couple filing jointly), whether you itemize deductions or take the standard deduction. This is $300 you won’t have to pay taxes on, even if you don’t itemize. For those who do itemize deductions, the new law allows for cash contributions to qualified charities such as ISHA to be deducted up to 100 percent of your adjusted gross income for the 2020 calendar year.

And, if your employer matches charitable contributions, your gift to ISHA could make an even bigger impact!

For our Canadian members, friends and donors, taxation advantages may be available, and we urge you to consult with your personal tax advisors in that regard.  You may also wish to refer to the following Canadian Government website: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/charities-giving/giving-charity-information-donors.html.

Pandemic Cancels Skiing History Week 2020

The 28th Annual ISHA Awards banquet, which was to be held December 10 at the Sun Valley Lodge, has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the International Skiing History Association (ISHA) will honor its 2019 ISHA Award winners with an online celebration this fall.

“Acknowledging the deep concerns over travel and the pandemic, ISHA will not host live Skiing History Week events in Sun Valley, Idaho in December,” ISHA president Seth Masia announced on July 22. “We will focus on planning our 2021 events at Snowmass, Colorado, from April 7 to 11. Sun Valley Resort has been a great partner through these uncertain times. We are looking forward to hosting our events there in March or April 2022.”

Originally scheduled for March 2020, Skiing History Week was delayed to December in the course of the pandemic’s first wave. Skiing history enthusiasts who had planned to travel to Sun Valley may apply for lodging deposit refunds by contacting Sun Valley Resort Reservations at (208) 786-8259. If you would like a refund for ISHA banquet tickets purchased early this year, please phone the ISHA office at (802) 362-1667 or email kathe@skiinghistory.org. If you do not request a refund, your tickets will be honored at the ISHA Awards banquet in Snowmass on April 8, 2021.

In addition to lectures, historic film screenings and ski and social gatherings, the highlight event of ISHA’s Skiing History Week each year is the ISHA Awards banquet. Award winners from around the globe are honored for ski history books, films and videos, broadcasts, websites and other media published during the preceding calendar year. ISHA also presents an award for lifetime achievement in ski history research, journalism, broadcasting or museum curation. The 2019 ISHA Awards honor 14 such works plus a lifetime achievement award. For details visit tinyurl.com/ISHAhonors2019. Video salutes will be posted this fall on the ISHA website (skiinghistory.org), the world’s most extensive ski history archival online source.

ISHA’s partner in staging Skiing History Week, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, has also opted to host its 2020 events online. Both organizations are now developing a full 2021 schedule of events to take place in Snowmass next April. HOF will also host a virtual induction ceremony in December honoring its Class of 2020 inductees. Details will be posted as they are finalized this fall at skihall.com and skiinghistory.org.

Photo top of page: The Swiss Academic Ski Club (SAS) receives ISHA’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019
for more than 90 years of promoting and preserving the history of the sport. Its wide-ranging mission includes publishing Der Schneehase, a highly regarded ski-history compendium.

Late thanks to Nick Paumgarten

It sometimes happens that letters to ISHA are sent to a previous address. That’s why, when long-time ISHA supporter Nick Paumgarten sent in his generous year-end donation in December 2019, the check went far astray. After a long delay caused by COVID-19, ISHA finally received Nick’s gift in June 2020. ISHA gratefully acknowledges Nick’s Super Giver donation ($2,000 to $4,999 category) as a contribution to the 2019 fundraising campaign. 

Skiing History Week, canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been rescheduled for December 9–13, 2020, in Sun Valley, in partnership with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.

Please join us at the 28th Annual ISHA Awards banquet, to be held December 10, 2020, at the Sun Valley Inn in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The event, originally set for March 28 but rescheduled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is part of Skiing History Week, December 9 to 13, held in partnership with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. ISHA’s tentative schedule of events is as follows (times are subject to change):

Wednesday, December 9
• Welcome reception (5 pm) Sun Valley Inn
• John Fry Memorial Lecture (6 to 7:30 pm) Sun Valley Inn

Thursday, December 10
• Retro ski day on the hill (9 am) Warm Springs
• Luncheon (noon) Roundhouse
• ISHA cocktail party (5 pm) Sun Valley Inn
• ISHA Awards Banquet (6:30 to 9 pm) Sun Valley Inn

Friday, December 11
• Historians’ Colloquium (7 am) By invitation, Sun Valley Inn

Saturday, December 12
• Hall of Fame Induction (Begins at 4:30 pm) Sun Valley Inn

Discounted lodging is available at the Sun Valley Lodge, Sun Valley Inn and at the Limelight Hotel in Ketchum. If you booked lodging for the March event, you may already have pushed your reservations back to December, or cancelled. If you cancelled your March reservations and wish to rebook for December, please call Sun Valley Lodging at 800-786-8259 or Limelight Reservations at 855-441-2250.

If you purchased a ticket for the March ISHA Awards Banquet and did not cancel, your ticket is valid for the December 10 banquet. If you do not hold a ticket and wish to book, please find information and book online at skiinghistory.org/events. At this link, you can also download a PDF of the awards booklet that features this year’s winners.

We all have been looking forward to gathering in Sun Valley and sharing our favorite winter pastime on their splendid ski slopes and in our social gatherings, and celebrating skiing’s history along with the authors, filmmakers, website creators and academics who are the winners of this year’s ISHA Awards. We intend to continue that tradition in both Sun Valley and Aspen/Snowmass in April 2021. We sincerely hope you will join us at both.

Thank you for your continued support of ISHA and its global mission—to preserve and advance the knowledge of ski history and to increase public awareness of the sport’s heritage. We look forward to seeing you as we launch the 2020–2021 season! —Seth Masia

ISHA Creates COVID-19 Archive

These are historic times for the ski industry and the world. During the most serious health crisis in our lifetimes, ski/snowboard gear and apparel companies, as well as resorts, are joining the battle against COVID-19. Companies are pivoting to create or source hundreds of thousands of surgical masks, resorts have donated food to furloughed employees, and a nonprofit called Goggles for Docs has provided 45,000 donated goggles to frontline health workers (gogglesfordocs.com).

In early May, the 30-year-old International Skiing History Association (ISHA), which has tracked the history of the sport dating back to 10,000-12,000 BCE, announced its plan to create a COVID-19 archive—a permanent repository that will document the industry’s response to the novel coronavirus around the world.

“Just as ISHA has archived the impact of wars, the Olympic movement, cultural shifts and technological change on the sport, we’re asking the ski industry, ISHA members, and consumers alike to share with us their stories of COVID-related events related to snow-sports,” says ISHA president Seth Masia.

Of particular interest are digital examples of COVID-related emails, advertisements, and photos of base lodge signage, ski retailer notices and masks. “These will become part of skiing’s largest online archive,” says Masia. He’s describing the ISHA website (skiinghistory.org), a free public resource that already contains thousands of historic documents, articles, videos, timelines, bibliographies and magazine indexes.

Material is being collected by ISHA business and events manager Kathe Dillmann and should be sent to kathe@skiinghistory.org. In a future issue, Skiing History plans to report on the impact of COVID on the sport. —Jeff Blumenfeld

ISHA Member Profile: Bob Soden

Bob Soden, who steps into John Fry’s shoes as a member of the ISHA Awards Committee, has been writing for Skiing History magazine (then Skiing Heritage) since 2002. He was elected to ISHA’s Board of Directors in 2014, and has long served as chair of the Board’s Ski Museum Outreach committee.

Bob grew up in Montreal, where he attended both French- and English-speaking elementary schools and skied a few times on local hills. When he was 13, his parents bought a house at Jay Peak, Vermont, and enrolled their four kids in a full-immersion ski school week. Bob loved it, and skied regularly with assistant ski school director George Stepanek, who lived in the Sodens’ caretaker apartment. In 1963, at age 15, Bob earned his teaching certificate and taught both part- and full-time in Walter Foeger’s Natur Teknik ski school for the next six winters.

Despite his passion for ski instruction, Bob managed to graduate from Marymount High School in 1965, serving as editor of the yearbook for three years. While studying structural engineering at Loyola College, and working part time as a draftsman, in 1974 he married Corinne Vaughan. They had four children: Jenny, Kit, Nicholas and Emily. Bob taught them all to ski at Jay, and three of the kids became instructors variously in Quebec, Lake Louise and Whistler.

After a successful career in the civil engineering field, Bob moved into mechanical engineering, with its many opportunities for field work. He became project manager on large industrial processing installations.

In 1997, Bob was in Montgomery, Vermont, near Jay Peak, trying to save an old schoolhouse from demolition. That project failed and the school came down. Bob realized that many in the Jay Peak area had little memory of the mountain’s history, so he sat down to research and write a history of Walter Foeger and the resort. Skiing Heritage editor Mort Lund asked him to expand the essay, and published it as the cover story in the June 2002 issue. A version appeared in the Collected Papers of the 2002 International Skiing History Congress. Bob has been writing for us ever since, and is working separately on his book-length oeuvre: Jay Peak—Once and Future. To support the writing projects, he has acquired a research library of about 400 books on skiing.

“It’s important to remember where we come from,” Bob said. “If you really want to understand the way we ski today, you need to see how our techniques and equipment evolved. Look back at the old photos, of the people who were the best skiers of their eras. We tend to assume that everything interesting was invented within the span of our own memories, but women competed in ski jumping in the 1910s, the ice skater Fritz Reuel invented the Reuel Christie on skis in the 1920s, and skiers did tricks on twin-tipped goon skis in the 1930s. We need to remember our own origins.” —Seth Masia

New Online Edition of Skiing History is Proving Popular

New format is more easily readable, text searchable and translatable

Beginning with the January-February 2020 issue, Skiing History publishes its online edition in web-page format. The new pages are easier to read than the original flip-page replica edition. Notably, the new format is text-searchable and can be read, like the rest of the skiinghistory.org website, in English, French, German, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish or Japanese. Like the older version, it’s accessible only to current members of ISHA.

The new format is already proving a success, with roughly three times the readership of the old flip-page format. When you receive e-mail notice that a new issue of Skiing History has been mailed, you’ll see a link to the new online magazine format. Or, on the skiinghistory.org home page, simply find the prominent box labeled “Current Skiing History Magazine.” At the bottom of that box, click on the link “Click Here to Read the Latest Online Magazine.”

Another way to find the new online magazine is to go to skiinghistory.org/skiing-history-magazine. You can reach that page from the skiinghistory.org home page: Just click on the tab “Skiing History Magazine” at the top of the page.

Once you’ve found the skiing-history-magazine menu, the current issue is prominent at the top of the screen. Recent issues can be found as links in the right-side navigation column. Just scroll down until you see:

SKIING HISTORY MAGAZINE
Volume 32 Number 2 March-April 2020
Volume 32 Number 1 January-February 2020

Then click on the issue you want to read.
There is a third way to find the digital magazine content. Go to the home page and scroll down to the menu titled “Explore Ski History.” Click on “Past Skiing History Issues.” That will bring you to skiinghistory.org/explore/issues with a list of online issues. For each recent issue, the gray link-bar goes to the new format online magazine, and the gold “digital flip-book” link goes to the older replica edition. If you use back issues of the magazine frequently, it’s a good idea to bookmark skiinghistory.org/explore/issues.

Questions? Feel free to email me (seth@skiinghistory.org). —Seth Masia 

Where’s My Magazine? Join Our E-Mail List and Get Alerts!

Every time we ship an issue of Skiing History to press, we send an e-mail notification to all ISHA members, letting you know a new magazine is on the way. But we only have valid e-mail addresses for a fraction of our members. To make sure you get these e-newsletters and other ISHA updates in your inbox, go to our homepage (skiinghistory.org) and scroll down until you see “Sign Up For Our Newsletter.”

Skiing History: Send it to a Friend!

ISHA needs more members, and you can help!

As an ISHA member, you certainly know other passionate skiers who would enjoy Skiing History magazine.

We’d like to send each of your skier friends a free copy of the magazine. We’ve learned over the years that when people read the actual paper magazine, there’s a good chance they’ll join our ranks.

To send a copy of the magazine to a friend, at no cost to you, just fill out the simple online form at our website: skiinghistory.org/send-friend-trial-membership#.

We’ll mail out the latest issue of magazine with a note that the recipient has you to thank for the gift. Thanks for your help! As a nonprofit, ISHA relies on membership dues and donations to share the history of our sport with the world.

JOIN US FOR SKIING HISTORY WEEK!

Sun Valley, Idaho

MARCH 25–28, 2020

Skiing History Week is ISHA’s annual gathering, presented in partnership with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. Higlights include ...

March 26: ISHA Awards Banquet (Sun Valley Inn)

Join ISHA in honoring the year’s best ski history books, films and websites, created by historians from around the world. Plus ISHA’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award and a special Stewardship Award!

March 28: U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame Induction Gala (Sun Valley Inn)

Eight snowsport pioneers will be honored as members of the Class of 2019 at a red-carpet gala. To read inductee bios, go to skihall.com/class-of-2019.

The jam-packed schedule also includes an ISHA welcome reception, parties, guided mountain tours, a freestyle
reunion, the ISHA Legacy Lecture and a retro ski day.

• Discount lodging is available at the Sun Valley Lodge, Sun Valley Inn and Limelight Ketchum Hotel. Space is limited, so book your room soon!

• To book lodging at the discounted rates, you must first purchase tickets online to the ISHA Awards or to any Hall of Fame event (sold separately). Your confirmation email will include hotel codes, links and booking instructions.

• Event ticket-holders can also buy discounted daily lift tickets ($65) Monday-Sunday at Sun Valley with a photo ID.

To buy event tickets and see a full schedule, go to skiinghistory.org/events

Questions? We can help! Call the ISHA office at 802.375.1105 or email event coordinator Kathe Dillmann (kathe@skiinghistory.org).

Photo: Michael Fleischhacker

January 21–26: 80th Hahnenkamm World Cup Race Week
Kitzbühel, Austria

Long considered the Super Bowl of alpine racing for those with an American sports perspective, Hahnenkamm Week is skiing’s ultimate test of guts and glory. Celebrating its 80th year, the race week culminates with the legendary downhill on the Streif, considered the most demanding, and most dangerous, downhill course on the World Cup circuit. Competitions include men’s Super-G, downhill and slalom. The race weekend can also be touted as the world’s biggest après-ski party, with upwards of 85,000 spectators annually streaming into the town of Kitzbühel, population about 8,000.

January 23 –February 2: Sundance Film Festival
Park City, Utah

Perhaps the most recognized film festival outside of Cannes, the Sundance Film Festival takes over Park City, Utah, each winter with daily screenings, panel discussions, filmmaker and audience Q and As, and such. Since 1985, hundreds of films that have launched at the festival have gained mainstream and critical acclaim. A side benefit for cinephiles who also happen to ski: The local slopes tend to be quiet during the festival, which attracts primarily non-mountain types.

February 5–9: 107th Annual Winter Carnival
Steamboat, Colorado

From skijoring down main street to the Lighted Man’s human fireworks show on Howelsen Hill, the oldest continuous Winter Carnival west of the Mississippi is an unapologetic celebration of winter. The event was started in 1914 by the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club to help frontier-town residents cope with cabin fever during the rugged northern Colorado winter.