Skiing Heritage News

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SKIING HERITAGE: A quarterly journal

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First Issue 2007, March, Vol 19 #1 Mont Revard poster

Cover: Mont Revard, France, 1930, by Paul Ordner. Poster commissioned by PLM Railway. Available from Mountain Chalet.

Tea Dance To Disco: Apres-Ski Through the Ages
by Morten Lund
Apres-ski partying began in Norway in the 19th Century, fueled by aquavit and sit-down potato dinners. Olaf Kjelsberg, a Norwegian chef, helped to export the tradition to the Ski Club Glarus in Switzerland in 1893. Resort hotels in France and Austria followed suit. By the late 1920s, Hannes Schneider's St. Anton instructors had acquired the social polish to entertain their wealthy clients through the evenings, and beyond. Austrian instructors brought these habits to the U.S. during the Depression. The basic rules of tea-dancing were two: No one drinks tea, and any male can ask any girl to dance. Instructors often competed for the attentions of comely guests -- and vice versa. Sun Valley took apre-ski to a new level with Hollywood celebs and the Peter Duchin Band. After WWII, Aspen, Alta and Breckenridge emulated European social life, building the party scene around a cadre of local ski bums holding court in places like the Hotel Jerome bar. California resorts helped to lead skiing into the sexual revolution of the late '60s, soon followed with enthusiasm by New York and Boston singles partying at New England lodges.

The Evangelists: Pioneer Ski Shops by Seth Masia
Mom-and-pop ski shops sparked skiing's boom in the post-war years, doing all the key recruiting, marketing and advertising jobs, plus importing and distributing skiwear and gear -- and even selling ski magazine ads. They supported ski racers and trained a generation of ski business execs. With a list of influential post-war shops, and a sidebar on the history of ski retailing from the 1880s.

The Wonders of Nancy -- Canadian Superstar by Nicholas Howe
Vocal, scrappy, an original out-of-the box thinker, Nancy Greene was the best woman skier in the world. During the '60s she won 17 Canadian championship titles, 13 World Cup races, two World Cup GS titles, two World Cup overall titles, gold and silver Olympic medals -- and among other honors was named Canada's Female Athlete of the Century. Growing up in Rossland, B.C. in a large skiing family, Nancy followed older sister Liz onto the Canadian team, and won the U.S. national downhill title at 16 -- then in 1967 won four of the first five World Cup races ever held. At the final slalom, she came from behind and whipped the entire French team to sew up the inaugural World Cup championship. She repeated the Cup championship in 1968, while taking Olympic slalom silver and Olympic GS gold -- by a phenomenal 2.64 sec margin.

Gray Rocks' First 100 Years by Doug Pfeiffer
Founded in 1906 at lumberman George Wheeler's home on Lake Ouimet, it was the first ski lodge in Canada, and only the second in North America. Wheeler's sons Tome and Harry made the first ski ascent of Mont Tremblant in 1916, and Jackrabbit Johannsen helped lay out the Gray Rocks ski trails. The hotel became the base for Wheeler Air Service, which flew sportsmen to remote Northern Quebec locations in float- and ski-planes. In the '30s, Bill Pauly and Dr. Ernest Wagner began teaching the Arlberg technique, and the first rope tow was installed on Sugar Peak in 1934. Herman Gadner arrived in 1939 to run the Snow Eagle ski school, and among his successful students was Harry's daughter Lucile Wheeler, downhill bronze medallist in 1956, and North America's first Hahnenkamm champion. She also was World Champion in downhill and GS in 1958. Gadner's successors were Luggi Foeger and then Real Charette. Competition from the upstart Mont Tremblant, three miles up the road, eventually took its toll, and in 1982 Gray Rocks was sold out of bankruptcy to Phil Robinson, owner of nearby Mont Blanc.

Vail and Cooper -- Twice as Nice by Richard Needham
A photo feature on Skiing Heritage Week at Vail -- ISHA's 16th annual on-snow Gathering.

Whatever Happened to 'Inner Sking'? by Morten Lund
Beginning in the 1960s, Denise McCluggage and Tim Gallwey -- students of Yoga and Zen Buddhism -- independently brought some fresh thinking to sports instruction. Gallwey's The Inner Game of Tennis (1974) turned racquet sports upside-down by focusing on the psychological barriers to learning (nervousness, self-doubt, want of focus) and encouraging the skill of visualization. The key was a relaxed acceptance of learning. With help from the editors of Ski, Gallwey began to develop The Inner Skier on the same principles. Meanwhile, race-car driver McCluggage, with Sugarbush ski school director Sigi Grottendorfer, developed The Centered Skier, based on her experience with Asian martial arts. The idea was that the lower abdomen -- what the Japanese call hara -- is not only the body's center of gravity but a center of energy and consciousness. It should be stable axis around which the body can move smoothly. By the late '70s, these new ideas had begun to filter into mainstream ski teaching across America. One productive offshoot was Elissa Slanger's Ski Woman's Way program, with its own book co-authored with Dinah Witchel.

Where Are They Now: Othmar Schneider by Seth Masia
Raised in Lech, Othmar Schneider won the 1951 Lauberhorn, then the gold medal in slalom and silver in downhill at the 1952 Olympics in Oslo. After the American International in Stowe, he stayed on with the ski school, perfecting his English as he taught Rockefellers and DuPonts to ski. From 1958 he coached the U.S. team, then the Austrians and Chileans, and took over the Boyne ski school (and the Portillo school) when Stein Eriksen moved to Aspen. Sears launched a line of Othmar Schneider ski merchandise. In 1968 Othmar returned to Lech and built the Hotel Kristiania, now run by his daughter; Othmar, now 77, still skis cautiously, and entertains American guests in the bar and restaurant.

Skier's Bookshelf by Morten Lund
Skiing in Massachusetts by Cal Conniff and E. John B. Allen. This collection of historic photos, with extensive captions, demonstrates the Commonwealth's central role in the development of New England skiing.
The Uphill Racer by Mel Dalebout. A non-linear autobiography and statement of philosophy by Utah's colorful, creative ski boot wizard.

Remembering: Gerald Ford, Skiing President; Ed and Dolores LaChappelle, Backcountry Pioneers; Walter Foeger, Ski Teaching Trailblazer; Erich Windisch, Jumper, Instructor and Artist.

Long Thongs: The Shoemaker and the Olympic Swimmer by Robert Parker
In April, 1945, Parker's platoon, dug in on the south bank of the Po River, watched German soldiers trying to swim to the opposite bank under American machine gun fire. Seven years later, in ski-boot shop in Munich, he learned the rest of the story. From the What'd You Do in the War, Dad? by Bob Parker.

Index of Back Issues

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The International Skiing History Association is a not-for-profit corporation, whose mission is to preserve and advance the knowledge of ski history and to increase public awareness of the sport's heritage.

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