THE ULTIMATE TIMELINE OF SKI HISTORY IN BANFF NATIONAL PARK
By Tera Swanson
From its first introduction to the Banff area by Scandinavian Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) workers and Swiss mountaineering guides, skiing has grown to be the very heartbeat and pulse of Canadian Rockies culture. Skiers may have traded in their pea coats and wooden skis for Gore Tex shells and the perfect camber, but the spirit of the sport remains in Canada’s first national park.
In 1948, the first chairlift in the area is opened on Mount Norquay. Image courtesy Mt. Norquay.
SKI HISTORY TIMELINE: BANFF NATIONAL PARK
1880s
Scandinavian axemen employed by the CPR on constructions crews near Silver City (once a mining town at the base of Castle Mountain) reportedly use handmade skis for hunting and to aid in their work.
1894
Banff resident George Paris receives skis from an American friend, who after visiting Banff and seeing Paris travelling on snowshoes, told him about skis used back in North Dakota by Norwegian immigrants (perhaps a good alternative to snowshoeing). Paris quickly gives up on the skis, but not without inspiring a few locals to fashion their own handmade replicas.
August 1896
Philip Stanley Abbot falls to his death from Mount Lefroy near Lake Louise, sparking pressure to improve safety in mountaineering. A few years later, the CPR imports professional Swiss mountain guides to work at the railway’s resort hotels, including the Chateau Lake Louise. A few guides stay through the winter to maintain the hotels, and introduce the enjoyment of their go-to winter activity from back home: skiing. Although considered an ‘outlandish behaviour’ by established Rockies residents, youth are immediately attracted and amused by this strange new sport.
1909
One of the first “twenty-somethings” from overseas seeking adventure in Banff (and certainly not the last!), Austrian mountaineer Conrad Kain comes to Canada with a pair of skis in hand. Kain would go on to become one of the most famous mountain guides in Rockies history.
1911
Kain builds a ski jump down Tunnel Mountain onto Caribou Street, near the present-day Banff Centre and Old Banff Cemetery. In March of that year, Kain organizes a winter sports festival with the help of friends. Running all night, the festival is lit with over 100 lamps and attracts 400 onlookers.
1917
Inspired by Kain’s passion for skiing, several local children – including Cyril Paris, son of George Paris, and brothers Cliff White and Peter Whyte (changed name) – form the Banff Ski Club. Club gear consists of skis built from hardwood and round wooden cheese boxes, broom handles for poles, and moccasins or other footwear strapped to the skis with leather scraps.
A ski jumper high over Mt. Rundle at Mt. Norquay. Image courtesy Mt. Norquay.
1917
Local businessmen Norman Luxton and B.W. Collinson carry on Kain’s spirit of the first winter sports festival by brainstorming a way to promote Banff as a winter destination. The result? The Banff Winter Carnival – complete with ski jumping, cross-country skiing and skijoring with horses. An ice palace is built by Eastern European enemy aliens from the winter internment camp at the Cave and Basin. The event becomes a prominent winter attraction in Banff, and occurs annually until the 1960s.
1919
Swedish skier Gus Johnson comes from Camrose to compete in the carnival. He stays in Banff following the festival, eventually going on to coach and mentor young skiers and the first Banff Ski Club members.
1926
Gus Johnson, Cyril Paris and Cliff White begin to explore the high country around Banff and discover that forest fires and logging had formed ready-made slopes on Mt. Norquay. They cut the first ski run on what would become the Canadian Rockies’ first ski resort.
The Lone Pine Lodge at Mt. Norquay. Image courtesy Mt. Norquay.
1928
Cliff White and Cyril Paris seek permission from parks authorities to build a cabin at the base of the cleared run on Mt. Norquay, turning Banff into a ski destination. Outdoor enthusiasts from Calgary persuade the boys to fashion the cabin with a fireplace and sleeping area, with life memberships to the cabin sold for $25.
1928
Ski pioneers Erling Strom and the Marquis degli Albizzi, both instructors from Lake Placid, establish a ski camp at Mount Assiniboine using a CPR cabin built for summer trail rides, and take clients in on skis to stay for several weeks. That summer, Strom builds Mount Assiniboine Lodge (in partnership with the CPR) and welcomes the first ski guests in 1929. This marks the birth of backcountry skiing in the Rockies.
1928
Cliff White and Cyril Paris create a plan to use a CPR cabin near present-day Sunshine as an overnight point in their ski trek over the Great Divide. Unfortunately they could not find the cabin that night and were forced to sleep in a dug-out in the snow. Upon waking in the morning they discover that they had only just missed the CPR cabin. These two men were the first to ski what is now known as Sunshine Village.
1929
The Mount Norquay Ski Camp (cabin) is officially opened on February 3, becoming a community ski and social hub for outdoor activity and gatherings. Guests arrive by foot or horse-drawn sleigh for après-ski parties running well into the night. Local interest shifts from cross-country skiing and ski jumping to downhill skiing.
1930
The first slalom race is held on the slopes of Mount Norquay.
1930
The Ptarmigan Valley near Lake Louise is explored by Cyril Paris and Cliff White, after being told of amazing skiing in the area by Swiss Guides and the Lake Louise Ski Club. After visiting the area, they are inspired to build a lodge in the Skoki Valley. Skoki Lodge sees its first guests in 1931.
1933
Banff entrepreneur Jim Brewster and his friends ski to Sunshine Meadows from the Bow Valley via Egypt Lake, and investigate the skiing possibilities around Sunshine Meadows – home to another CPR cabin. Jim and his brother, Pat, lease the cabin for ski trips, hosting their first paying guests in 1934. In 1936, Brewster Transport buys the cabin outright for $300. It is now Mad Trapper’s Saloon.
1935
Depression work crews build a road up to Mt. Norquay, making the ski area accessible by vehicle.
1935
Wealthy British industrialist, Sir Norman Watson, gains majority ownership of Skoki. Watson, whose extravagant ideas for development of ski areas and amenities are stifled by parks authorities, seeks direct approval from the Governor General of Canada. He builds Temple Lodge on the east side of Whitehorn Mountain in 1938 – the beginnings of the Lake Louise Ski Resort.
Big Friendly and the girls at Lake Louise. Photo by Eddie Hunter, courtesy Lake Louise Ski Resort.
1936
Calgary Ski Club members and ski enthusiasts flock to Mt. Norquay on the weekends, arriving by car pool, chartered bus, and CPR scheduled trains, at times with seven to eight cars filled with skiers.
1938
Mount Norquay Ski Camp burns to the ground. A new lodge is built in 1939 by the Canadian Rockies Winter Sports Association Inc. and opens in 1940.
1938
Sunshine hosts the Canadian National Ski Championships.
1941
Earning your turns requires a lot less effort as the first mechanical ski lift in the Rockies appears on Mount Norquay, built by Jim Morrison. These first primitive ski lifts involve rope tows powered by automobile engines.
1941
As a road is developed, and allows easier access to the area, Sunshine evolves from a backcountry lodge, similar to Mount Assiniboine and Skoki, to the beginnings of one of the biggest ski resorts in the Rockies.
1942
A guide and packer from Banff, Jim Boyce builds the Lake Louise Ski Lodge. It is now the Post Hotel & Spa.
1945
The first permanent lift powered by a Mercury V8 engine is installed at Sunshine by Jim Brewster, who agrees to pay 5% of his earnings to Parks Canada for allowing the construction on park land. The dent? 50 cents for a half day, or one dollar per day.
1948
The first chairlift in the area is opened on Mount Norquay. Initially intended as a summer tourist attraction, its benefit to skiers came as an afterthought – but it made a huge difference. A boom in downhill skiing begins.
1952
George Encil purchases “Sunshine” and renames it Sunshine Village. At this time, Encil also owns Mount Norquay.
Ski jumper at Lake Louise. Photo by Eddie Hunter, courtesy Lake Louise Ski Resort.
1957-58
Hans Gmoser presents his first film, With Skis and Rope, to audiences across North America. For the next decade, each year Hans tours a film around the continent promoting backcountry ski adventures in Alberta and British Columbia.
1959
The gondola at Lake Louise opens. The next year, the Eagle Flight Pomalift is installed on Whitehorn Mountain.
1960
Walter Fisher buys the Mount Norquay operation from Encil.
1960
Cliff White and his wife Bev purchase Sunshine Village Ski Resort. For 17 years, White leads the operation and takes it from a small resort, with one “platter pull” lift, to a major resort with many ski lifts, a hotel and a day lodge. They sell to Warnock Hersey International in 1969 and White remains to watch over the growing reputation of the resort.
1962
Sunshine installs its second lift, the Wawa T-bar, increasing capacity of the ski area to 1,200 people per hour. Skiers are brought up to ski area from the Bourgeau Parking Lot via a wild and winding Brewster bus ride up the Sunshine Road.
A Bruno Engler photograph from Sunshine Village. Bruno Engler came to Canada from Switzerland in 1939 and spent sixty years in the Rockies as a photographer, mountain guide, ski instructor and cinematographer. Photo courtesy Sunshine Village.
1963
The first experimental heli-ski excursion, led by Hans Gmoser, takes place in the front ranges of the Rockies not far from Canmore.
1965
Based in Banff, Canadian Mountain Holidays builds the Bugaboo Lodge in 1967, the first of a dozen heli-skiing operations, thus beginning the growth of the CMH empire.
1967
The Great Divide Traverse is successfully skied by a young foursome from Calgary – Don Gardner, Charlie Locke, Neil Liske and Chic Scott. This initiates a boom in backcountry ski touring (using Nordic ski equipment) in the Rocky Mountains.
1976
The sport of extreme skiing in the Canadian Rockies is born when Rene Boisselle and Arno Birkitt ski the south face of Banff’s Cascade Mountain.
1978
Doug Ward and Greg Hann ski the 3/4 Couloir at Moraine Lake. The next year Ward and Kevin Hann ski the Aemmer Couloir on Mount Temple. Ward goes on to be the leading force in the sport of extreme skiing for two decades.
1979
Construction begins on the gondola from the Bourgeau Parking Lot to Sunshine Village.
1980
The Winterstart World Cup is hosted in Lake Louise for the first time, the first outside of Europe ever to be named to the prestigious Club 5. The organization brings together 13 of the most famous and historic World Cup alpine race courses in the world.
Early 1980s
Neil Daffern and Ken Achenbach, both from Calgary, pioneer the use of snowboards. Over the next two decades, snowboarding becomes very popular with young folk and revitalizes Alberta ski resorts.
Ski Patrol at Lake Louise Ski Area. Photo by Eddie Hunter, provided by Lake Louise Ski Area.
1980s
A tradition since the beginnings of skiing in the Sunshine area, Slush Cup becomes an event open to the public. In the Spring of 1928, following Cliff White and Cyril Paris’ first foray into the Sunshine, skiers played in the runoff, beginning a long-standing tradition that occurs annually at winter’s end. Today, Slush Cup attracts locals and visitors alike, who dress up and ski or snowboard across an icy pool of water in the warm weather of the May long weekend.
1981
Sunshine Village is purchased by Ralph T. Scurfield and the resort remains owned by the Scurfield family to this day. The same year, Charlie Locke buys the Lake Louise Ski Resort and soon begins to develop and expand operations.
1990s
Backcountry skiing booms and steep skiing takes off as an activity for the young. Doug Ward continues to ski steep lines throughout the 1990s, including the North Face of Mount Fay, the North Face of Mount Quadra and The Dolphin Couloir on Mount Temple.
1997
The Lodge of the Ten Peaks at the Lake Louise Ski Resort opens.
1999
After being closed to skiers in 1981 due to avalanche hazard, Delirium Dive at Sunshine is reopened after the ski area agreed to take responsibility to control and patrol the area, and provide rescue if necessary.
2001
A new 8-passenger, high-speed gondola opens at Sunshine Village.
2007
The Mountain Smoker, a ski event originating in 1976, returns to Mt. Norquay for the first time in 23 years. Skiers compete to see how many laps of the Lone Pine run they can complete in three hours. Seventeen-year-old, Phil Hudec, completes 20 runs (the record in 1976 was 18 runs), while long-time Banff local, Eddie Hunter, completes 16 runs at the remarkable age of 81.
2011
Banff Lake Louise Tourism reignites the Winter Carnival with new winter festivals, including Winterstart and Snow Days. As was done in 1917, the events heighten the allure of Banff as a winter destination.
2014
Sherpas Cinema releases Sculpted in Time, a four-part film series celebrating the ski culture of Banff National Park.
Sources:
Alpine Skiing Timeline. Alberta Sports History Library
A Mountain Life, By Bruno Engler
Mountain Smoker Makes Its Return With All Ages Assault on Lone Pine. Crag and Canyon
Calgary Goes Skiing: A History of the Calgary Ski Club. By David Mittelstadt
The Spirit of Norquay, By Eddie Hunter
Powder Pioneers. By Chic Scott
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