Culture

The highest price paid for a vintage find: $17,500.

Manhattan’s Swann Galleries offered a mix of classic and unusual American posters at its February 2022 vintage sale, along with a handful of blue-chip European ski posters that commanded high prices. The 45 posters, from countries as diverse as France, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and the United States, were the amalgam of artistic rarities, masterpieces and oddities that collectors have come to expect from this well-regarded auction house.

Among the American pieces was artist Jack Galliano’s “VIII Olympic Winter Games/Squaw Valley, Feb 18–28, 1960.” This was the second of two official posters designed for the Squaw Valley Winter Games (the first one had been issued before the exact dates of the Games were determined). It was printed in late 1959, and a map of the U.S. on the flag shows the location of Squaw Valley. With an estimated worth of between $1,200 and $1,800, the poster sold for $812 (including the buyer’s premium, which is 25 percent of the hammer price).

A “Ski Alta” poster from about 1941 depicted the Alta Lodge, with a block of advertising text promoting the Alf Engen Ski School and the resort’s location “Just above Salt Lake City.” “I stayed here when I was younger,” recalls Nicholas Lowry, president of Swann, head of the gallery’s poster division and an appraiser on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. “We’ve had this poster several times before. It’s not incredibly rare, but it’s rare enough. If you look closely, you can see that there’s a pasted tip-on that says ‘Alf Engen,’ who took

over the ski school in 1949. We did some research and found that his name was covering ‘Durrance,’ as in Dick Durrance, who led Alta’s ski school from 1940–1942. It was clearly cheaper to paste Engen’s name over Durrance’s and keep using this original poster.” The poster sold for $3,250, higher than its $3,000 estimate.

Two ski posters in the auction were created by the German-born designer Sascha Maurer, best known for his work for the New Haven Railroad, New England ski resorts and ski manufacturers. They included Maurer’s “Ski Stowe Vermont/ Ski Capital of the East,” late 1950s. “Maurer designed the Stowe logo, the swoosh ‘S,’” says Lowry. “This is wonderful, but I don’t believe this was its first appearance of the logo.” The poster was estimated between $1,500 and $2,000, and realized $1,188.

The second Maurer poster advertised Flexible Flyer skis (top of page) and had been overprinted for The Manor House in Kearsarge, New Hampshire. Estimated between $2,000 and $3,000, it sold for $1,690. “They printed a lot of posters in this fashion, leaving a blank space on the lower part of the poster for the name of the distributor or hotel,” Lowry says. “Just look at this happy couple, jumping together, their form is great. It’s so joyful—it’s one of his best posters. In fact, it’s a perfect ski poster.”

Another New England ski classic, “New Hampshire,” depicted an iconic image: a faceless skier and an enormous snowflake floating over a map of the state. It was the 1935 creation of Edgar Hayes “Ted” Hunter Jr., who skied in the 1936 Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and trained as an architect—at Dartmouth College and later at Harvard University—under Bauhaus master Walter Gropius. Hunter went on to become a notable designer of midcentury modern houses. Estimated between $600 and $900, the poster sold for $688.

An artist named D. Thayer was the creator of “Sugarloaf,” a circa-1955 poster for Maine’s largest ski mountain. The resort opened in 1953, and Lowry says that “I researched when the third chairlift went in, which is how I dated this poster. The artist gave us some telltale hints. When they draw something so specific as each chairlift, you know they’re working from either a photograph or real life. I’ve also never seen this poster before.” The sale price of $875 was below the top $1,000 estimate.

Sun Valley images are typically big sellers at Swann’s auctions. This sale included “Sun Valley/Round House on Baldy Mountain,” arguably the most famous of the bunch. The 1940 creation by Dwight Clark Shepler had a blank space at the bottom for a railroad company to leave its imprint. The $2,860 final price was just shy of the $3,000 top estimate.

“Ski World-Wide/Pan Am” dates from 1970 and shows a downhiller in full racing form. It can’t be a coincidence that the racer looks like Robert Redford, whose film Downhill Racer had premiered the year before. “I like the fact that it’s done in a cinematic way, with the repeating images of his poles and legs, so that it appears that he’s in motion and going very fast,” Lowry says.

Bidders liked it, too, driving the price way above the $1,200 top estimate to sell for $2,600. Speaking of ski films, a poster for Dick Barrymore’s The Last of the Ski Bums from 1969, with its Day-Glo colors characteristic of the era, jumped its top estimate of $600 and sold for $812.

One of the most unusual offerings at the sale, “Ski the Black Hills/South Dakota,” was created by an unknown designer from the late 1960s. Lowry guessed that the mountain depicted was Terry Peak, given its claim as the “Highest Ski Area East of the Rockies.” Mount Rushmore, also depicted, actually lies 36 miles to the south of Terry, as the crow flies. “It’s psychedelic in style, with that typography, the colors and even the skier’s sweater,” says Lowry. “It’s very groovy and the most unusual ski poster in the sale.” When it sold for $292, well below its low estimate of $400, it also proved a bargain.

When the auction turned to European ski posters, many far older than their American counterparts, the bidding was more fevered, often with higher prices as a result.

One of the great classics, “À Chamonix–Mont Blanc,” with a high-flying ski jumper, was one of five official posters for the 1924 Olympics in Chamonix published by the PLM Railway. Note that the event was designated an Olympics only after the fact. All of them were issued with text variants, sometimes promoting the Games and later on winter activities in the area itself. This version is dated 1927, repurposed to advertise Chamonix’s winter sports facilities. With an estimate of $3,000 to $4,000, it sold for $3,750.

“Bilgeri-Ski Ausrüstung” is an iconic image of ski poles, leather baskets and wooden skis with the then-new Bilgeri bindings. It readily appeals to collectors who seek posters of vintage ski equipment. The fact that artist Carl Kunz posed the gear against the Matterhorn doesn’t hurt, either. Even more striking about this image is the purple sky, with a

purplish cast on the snow. “I said, ‘Purple snow? Purple sky?’ when I first saw this poster years ago,” Lowry remembers, “but an artist friend has assured me that purple is the color that she and many others see at certain times of day in the Alps.”

One of the most astonishing images at the auction was a poster for Swiss ski resort Mürren from 1931, showing a skier plunging headlong down a piste with what appears to be the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau rearing up behind him. This eerie, dreamlike image by artist André Lecomte is “like an airbrush masterpiece—you’ve got the blur of the sky, the Alpine purple again between two flags and the mountains in the background,” Lowry says. “The text is also masterfully done.” Bidders appeared equally intrigued, and the $6,000 high estimate was easily surpassed, with the final sale price at $10,000.

“Klosters,” by photographer Andreas Pedrett, is “less of an accomplished photomontage and looks more like a colorized photograph,” says Lowry. The poster sold for $4,000, more than three times its top estimate. “It’s very unusual, and what she’s wearing is phenomenal ski fashion,” Lowry adds.

Another photomontage was Emil Schulthess’ 1937 poster for Pontresina. A black-and-white photographic background of skiers heading down the treeless pistes of Diavolezza is superimposed with a free-floating pair of glacier glasses and the reflections of a woman’s face. “I love it just because you get these reflections on glasses, which is odd because the glasses aren’t on somebody’s face,” Lowry observes. “These mysterious floating glasses reflect the image of a happy, smiling skier. It’s unbridled joy and happiness, and we all know that feeling on the mountain.”

The clear star of the auction: Martin Peikert’s deeply sensual poster for Champéry. This surreal fantasy from 1955 depicts a giant sleeping female skier, her curvaceous shape matching the bumps of the piste, as a tram whizzes overhead and diminutive skiers schuss beside her.

“Peikert has developed a cult following among collectors,” Lowry says. “Even his less good images sell for more than people expect. This happens to be one of his best images, the anthropomorphization of the mountain. The colors are great, the conceit is good, and the execution is fantastic. We expect it to go high for all those reasons,” he adds. Indeed it did, flying past its $10,000 top estimate and selling for $17,500.

Swann’s next auction of vintage ski posters will take place in February 2023. Visit swanngalleries.com. 

The temperature rises, the snow corns up and you find yourself asking: How fast is too fast?

I love spring skiing. The toasty temperatures loosen up an old body (as much as that’s possible), the soft, easy-turning snow makes everyone feel like Killy and, let’s face it, a lot of pretty bodies come out from under layers of ski clothes to bask in the mountain sunshine.

But as I was standing behind the safety of a large tree on a recent spring afternoon watching people race by, I didn’t need a radar gun to know that they were all going a lot faster than they did a few years ago.

Warm, late-season weather and soft snow certainly promote this supersonic pace. But there’s another simple reason: The invention of the shaped ski has made it easier and easier to go faster and faster on snow that is groomed so smooth that even a senior citizen can ski faster than racers did in the Harriman Cup Downhill in 1948. I know, because I’m a senior citizen and I raced in the Harriman Cup in 1948. The ski equipment of the 1940s made it impossible to ski at even today’s just-out-cruising speeds.

As more and more skiers get comfortable with today’s equipment, the speeds will get faster, and one of the more common sights on the slopes will be people hiding behind trees or continually looking over their shoulders to dodge other people as they jet down the mountain.

Is there a solution to high-speed skiing? I don’t think so. A ski patroller chasing a high-speed skier down a hill to catch him and take away his lift ticket only compounds the danger—now you have two people skiing too fast on the same run. This raises the basic question: At what speed are we skiing too fast? Is it a mathematical equation that takes the speed of everyone else on the hill and then divides it by the number of skiers per acre and sets an average speed? Then, if you ski a certain percentage above that speed, you pay the consequences. And what resort is going to pay to have a slope sheriff patrol every run?

Recently I skied in great powder snow in Montana. Sixteen inches of goose-feather stuff, and I skied at a comfortable pace for me—I wasn’t skiing fast, but I also wasn’t going slow by anyone’s standards.

I skied by someone who was going a lot slower than I was—and I probably scared the dickens out of her. A hundred yards down the hill, someone raced by me in the deep powder so he could get first tracks. All of us were having a great time in the powder and skiing at much different speeds, so how is some sort of speed standard going to be established?

There was a time when a major destination resort, such as Vail, Colo., or Mammoth Mountain, Calif., only had a few hundred skiers on the hill at one time. I know, because I usually was one of the few hundred.

Now, on President’s Weekend, these megaresorts may hit 20,000 skiers—or more—on their slopes. Because of the large crowds, should everyone ski slower? If they are all forced to slow down, will they ever come back? Is there a moral to this story?

No.

Is there a happy ending? Probably. Should we all have to take a test and then wear a number on our parkas that says this is the maximum speed we can ski or our lift tickets will be pulled? Not yet.

As it has always been, skiing is about freedom. It’s a sport built on the ability to fly down a mountainside—at any speed or in any style that works for you. That hasn’t changed. But skiers and riders now have to be more aware that better gear and better grooming has all of us enjoying that freedom at speeds that would have won the Harriman Cup Downhill in 1948.

Enough of this. I’m going skiing tomorrow—and I might scare myself occasionally. But I’ve purchased a helmet in case someone speeding down the slopes runs into me before the lifts close. 

This column was originally published in the March-April 2007 issue of SKI Magazine.

Three years in the making, museum unveils a dramatic facelift and new exhibits.

This past December, after three years of fundraising and design work, the Alf Engen Ski Museum completed its latest renovation, featuring ten brand-new or redesigned exhibits.

On display are interactive tributes to Utah’s most celebrated Norwegians, Alf Engen and Stein Eriksen. The Engen exhibit includes a vast trophy case containing around 100 of Engen’s trophies and plaques, plus innumerable medals.

A new exhibit about avalanches and the history of avalanche-control work is built around the interior of a ski patrol shack, circa 1940. It includes the story of Monty Atwater’s research center in Alta, and an early M20 recoilless rifle is on display.

A series of display cases highlights the evolution of snowsport equipment, including dedicated installations for snowboards, freestyle skis, cross country skis, and various flavors of Alpine skis, all with their corresponding boots.

The 10th Mountain Division is an important part of this area’s ski history. This exhibit features World War II artifacts, including camouflage jackets, pants and skis, “trigger finger” gloves, snowshoes, a hat and goggles.

Interactive electronics drive two key exhibits. First is the spectacular three-dimensional topo map of the Wasatch Range, showing the locations of each of the Salt Lake area’s ski resorts. The map features an integrated touch screen which allows museum visitors to learn about any topic related to skiing in Utah, from resort statistics to weather conditions and historic events and people. Ski areas and backcountry access points are projection mapped directly onto the scale model’s surface.

The second electronic marvel is the greenscreen photo booth. Visitors pose for a camera and can choose from a variety of projected scenic or action-oriented backgrounds for their souvenir photo, which is then texted to their mobile device to share with family and friends.

Celebrating its twentieth anniversary in May, the museum is located at Utah Olympic Park in Park City, Utah, and educates more than 500,000 visitors annually. The museum’s building began life as the press center for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and today houses not only the Alf Engen Ski Museum, but also includes the Eccles 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum. Admission to both museums is free.

The 1,800 sq. ft. hall was designed and installed by Ogden-based Unrivaled, Inc., a digital and three-dimensional design agency and exhibit producer. 

Connie Nelson has been executive director of the Alf Engen Museum since 2004 and is a former director of ISHA.

Adrian Allinson’s woodcut of a speeding skier first appeared in Der Winter, the publication of the German Ski Association, in 1928. Oddly, because he was a well-known mountaineer and skier, it is his only known image of skiing. The woodcut certainly impresses with its depiction of action and speed.

Allinson had begun following his father into medicine but switched to the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Graduating in 1910, he promptly left for Paris and Munich. His paintings, many pastoral scenes, became well-known before the Great War. His most prized was a 1915-16 interior depiction of the Café Royal.

As one of a group of artists who were conscientious objector during the Great War, he was often hounded by Londoners. He joined the Bloomsbury Group, a liberal and loose-living set of artists and writers. Besides the many landscapes, he did opera sets, and his series for London Transport and the Imperial Marketing Board are among his best-known works. He has left an account of his artistic life in manuscript form, held in the archives of the McFarlin Library of the University of Tulsa.

A lifelong skier, Allinson was a member of the Kandahar Club, captained the British University Ski Club downhill team, and came second in the 1925 Bernese Oberland Challenge Shield, beating such luminaries as Barry Caulfeild. In the first Inferno at Mürren, in 1928, he finished fourth. Teamed with Arnold Lunn, he won the first Scaramanga Challenge Cup, in which skiers are roped together in pairs as if crossing a glacier. Lunn said that Allinson only stopped racing when he and Lunn were tied for first place two years in a row in the Scaramanga.

It is not often you can say more about the skiing of an artist than the actual art, but Allinson knew what he cut in the wood—it typified Schrei der Zeit, the cry of the times: speed. 

In 1907, brothers Max and Leopold Hirsch, with their partner Harry Weis, manufactured tents and workmen’s clothing in Portland, Oregon. Harold Hirsch, son of Max, grew up climbing and skiing in the Cascades. He attended Dartmouth College (Class of ’29) and raced on the ski team. When he returned home in 1930, he took over a corner of the factory to make skiwear under the brand name White Stag—a translation of weisser Hirsch. In 1939, he designed the first rust-colored National Ski Patrol parka. By 1956 White Stag was the largest manufacturer of sportswear in the United States, and Hirsch took the company public. White Stag was purchased by Warnaco in 1966 and moved out of Portland. Hirsch was inducted into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in 1990, the year of his death. The White Stag brand name is now owned by Walmart, but it’s not used on skiwear. This ad ran in the November 1960 issue of SKI Magazine. In-the-boot stretch pants, lace-up leather boots and cable bindings went extinct by 1968. The dramatic colorblocking his and her sweaters, however, do have an après-ski vibe still popular 60 years later. –Seth Masia

Coming Up in Future Issues

Spider’s Gift

Beyond the tabloid headlines, Spider Sabich changed American racing. Edie Thys Morgan investigates the misunderstood legacy of an American racing icon.

Skiers in Flight

John Lundin explores the roots of ski jumping in Sun Valley and the history of Ruud Mountain.

What to Read and Watch in the New Year

Your history homework starts with the winners of the annual ISHA Awards, listed next issue.

PLUS

• Everett Potter provides a peek into Swann Galleries’ vintage ski-poster auction.
• Where Are They Now: Marco Tonazzi.
• Ski academies at 50; Does the racer development system work?

VISIT THE ISHA WEBSITE: www.skiinghistory.org

Join our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/skiinghistory

What a wonderful compliation of history and music made available through the web site (“History of Ski Music and Song,” September-October 2021). Appreciation to the author, Charlie Sanders. I was especially impressed by his wide ranging and through knowledge of ski related songsters from the 1950s and 1960s. Mr. Sanders really blew my mind as he described the contribution of Mike Cohen’s collection of ski songs, To Hell With Skiing! published in 1967 and his description of the contributions made by Mr. Cohen’s ski lodge Trailside, near Killington, Vermont. Mr. Sanders’ recollections were spot on and brought back a flood of memories. In the 1960s I had the opportunity to stay at Trailside. It truly was a life changing experience. Entertainment was provided by the guests themselves. Instruments hung from the living room walls. All were invited to take an instrument and share a story, tune or a song. It was the coolest thing a young teenager from the ’burbs like myself could experience. I should also add that my photograph is included as part of a song in To Hell With Skiing! I am “The Cold Skier Man.”

Mark Plaat
Albany, New York

Jubel to Norway

Congratulations with a very Norwegian issue in September-October: An extensive story on Kari Traa, review of the book on Andreas Wyller (who won two of the three first national championships, in 1938 and 1940, and led the clearing of the trail which carries his name), and then the Northland story involved several Norwegians. Keep it up!

Jon Vegard Lunde
Lillehammer, Norway

Farewell to Ron LeMaster

Ron was a very humble and quiet person, yet he produced the most amazing photo sequences of ski runs. His analyses were phenomenal and his technical expertise superb, all documented by the undeniable evidence of his photography. The photos produced the most appealing confrontation and learning opportunity for everybody—experts, beginners, professionals, amateurs, J5 or Masters.

He skied at the University of Colorado and coached there from 1977-79. He graduated and taught in the Physics Department. His passion for the physical analysis of the ski turn was legendary. The Ski World will miss Ron, the artist of motion dissection.

Richard Rokos
Former University of Colorado Ski Coach
Boulder, Colorado

Northland Revived

Here’s a followup to the early history of Northland Skis (September-October 2021). We bought the Northland trademarks in 2013 and began selling skis we make by hand right here in Steamboat. It’s a modern all-mountain carving ski made of hickory/ash laminates in the Northland tradition, reinforced with Kevlar and carbon fiber, making a unique blend of traditional and modern materials. See our website northlandskis.com.

Peter Daley
Northland Skis
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Here’s a postscript to the article “Northland Skis: Fire and Feuds in St. Paul” (September-October) about Christian Lund, Northland Skis, and Martin Strand, who produced some of the first high-quality skis for retail sale.

In 1931, Northland donated a “very good pair” of its heaviest jumping skis for the winner of the Cle Elum Ski Club tournament. Its letter said “nearly all of the best skiers prefer skis that weigh around 15 lbs. or slightly less. It is our opinion that whenever a pair of jumping skis goes beyond 16 lbs. in weight, they are too heavy, no matter how large the hill.” Their local dealer in Cle Elum, Washington, Parchen Hardware, displayed the skis before the tournament.

The company’s letterhead has a picture of C.A. Lund, president, saying he had “taken part in many tournaments abroad and in this country, and has kept in close contact with the sport and with skiers of prominence. Mr. Lund has followed and aided in the development and growing popularity of skiing and is a recognized authority on the sport.”

John W. Lundin
Seattle, Washington

More on Megève

Regarding my article “Baroness Mimi and Mont d’Arbois,” (November-December 2021), I’d like to add that Megève heads into its second century as a partnership between Benjamin de Rothschild and the Four Seasons Hotels group, rechristened the Four Seasons Hôtel Megève. Pampered guests will find first-class amenities, Michelin-starred food and an exquisite spa. Ariane de Rothschild led the interior design work with a view to maintaining a connection to the resort’s past.

Bob Soden
Montreal

Letters to the Editor: We’re All Ears

There may not be a more experienced and distinguished readership in the ski industry than ISHA’s audience. We’d like to hear from you. Send letters to the editor to seth@skiinghistory.org. Please include your name and your town of residence.

To Heaven's Heights: An Anthology of Skiing in Literature, by Ingrid Christophersen

Skiing has produced its share of good literature. The sport owes its worldwide popularity in great part to the writing skills of Fritdjof Nansen and Arnold Lunn. Novelists who wrote about skiing, either occasionally or only once, include Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernest Hemingway, Irwin Shaw, Romain Gary, Thomas Mann, D.H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, John Cheever, John Updike, James Salter, Gay Talese, Oakley Hall and Leon Uris. Thrillers often toss in a ski chase, a few of them believable. Now and then a magazine of literary quality—The New Yorker or Harper’s for example—picks up a lengthy bit of journalism. Not a few “real” lifelong skiers have produced lyrical work.

The last time some gems of skiing literature were gathered together in English was the 1982 anthology The Ski Book, edited by Morten Lund, Bob Gillen and Michael Bartlett. Now Ingrid Christophersen offers her favorite selections in To Heaven’s Heights: An Anthology of Skiing in Literature.

Christophersen retired in 2019 after a lifetime of racing, teaching and coaching. She was a FIS delegate and coached five decades for Britain’s Downhill Only Ski Club, traditional rival to the Kandahar Ski Club. Born in Norway, Christophersen has the advantage of fluency in some half a dozen languages.

And that is her book’s strength. It draws equally from Scandinavian and English-language sources. Many of the Norwegian excerpts, comprising about half the content, Christophersen translated specifically for this book, and are therefore available in English for the first time. I found delightful surprises amongst these authors, many of whom wrote about adventures in childhood, or as young adults. But there’s a lengthy passage from the Kalevala, the Finnish folk epic, a revelation.

Many of the excerpts run just a page or two, and I often wanted more. Christophersen has given me a new list of books I want to read in full. I therefore wished for publishing details on the books from which the excerpts are drawn, so I could find them without resorting to much internet searching.

To Heaven’s Heights grabbed me, and I wound up reading its 70-odd chapters in two days. 

To Heaven’s Heights: An Anthology of Skiing in Literature. Compiled by Ingrid Christophersen, MBE. London: Unicorn Publishing Group (unicornpublishing.org), 2021. 336 pages, hardbound. $45 (Kindle edition available).

Ski Life

Otto Barth was a sickly child. To gain strength, he was taken to the mountains at age 16. The same year, he was admitted to the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts. Two years later, he teamed up with his artist friend Gustav Jahn for serious mountaineering. He died, probably of lead poisoning from his paints, at age 39.

Turn-of-the-century Vienna rivalled Paris with artistic experimentation. Barth socialized with a group of artists who rebelled against the progressive Secession movement to form the more radical Hagenbund. Going further still, he joined the short-lived Phalanx, which exhibited post-Impressionist and Jugendstil (art nouveau) paintings.

In 1910 Barth won the commission for the poster of the Salzkammergut resort region. The telemarking skier is shown in fine form, and in the correct Norwegian blue outfit. What’s striking is the use of color and shadow, as well as the depiction of snow itself.

The other illustration is the poster turned Werbemarke (advertising stamp) for the Wintersport-Ausstellung, the Winter Sport Exhibition of 1912. The image of a skier descending from the mountains is center stage, again using those hints of shadow. This was an important exhibition, organized by army officer Hermann Czant (Czant was an acolyte of Matthias Zdarsky and trained thousands of Imperial Army skiers), under the patronage of the Grandduchess Zita, who would become the last empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The exhibition was divided between the business of winter sports and the physical aspects of the sport itself. The top Vienna sporting goods shop, Mizzi Langer, was represented, as was Staub of Innsbruck. Norway sent representatives, and Norwegian ski outfits and British winter sports clothes dominated. One critic was thankful there were no new bindings (controversy then raged over binding design for Alpine skiing). On the resort side, Semmering showed a model of its ski jump, and there were other displays from Triberg, the Schwarzwald, the Arlberg and Innsbruck. The trail marking from the Erzgeberge was singled out positively.

There was also a good collection of winter posters and some paintings, too. The best of those were by Jahn and Barth. I like to think that the telemarking skier was one on view; it was painted before the year of the exhibition.

The U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum Museum will reopen in March.

The 10th Mountain Division had a profound and well-known influence in World War II, and its veterans went on to key roles in developing the U.S. ski and outdoor industries. The 10th has been reactivated twice, from 1948 to 1958 and from 1985 to the present. Still the army’s only mountain division, it’s also the most-deployed division. The troops train at Fort Drum in New York (established as Pine Camp in 1908), which has grown to be the largest training base in the northeastern United States.

Newly renovated, the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum Museum tells the story of the birth of American military skiing and all that follows, through more than 400 objects, nearly twice as many period photographs and a collection of archival documents, all in almost 5,000 square feet of exhibit space.

On entry, visitors are greeted by a potbelly stove like those used in the wooden barracks of Camp Hale, Colorado, where the division also trained. The initial gallery then explains the early role of the U.S. Army in this region of New York, including cold-weather training for units destined to fight in Europe during World War II.

Visitors then move into a gallery focusing on the development of the 10th Mountain Division. Here they’ll find a selection of equipment, including a Weasel tracked vehicle and ski boots clad with leather soles, as rubber was rationed for the war effort. Additional galleries explore division veterans’ post-war influence on the ski and outdoor industries and show how the division’s history still impacts the U.S. Army today.

Skiing History readers are familiar with the basic story: In 1939, as the world descended into the chaos of World War II, Germany and Russia were gobbling up their neighbors. The ski season of 1939–1940 was interrupted by the war, and there would be no 1940 Olympics. Newsreels were filled with scenes from the Finnish-Soviet Winter War, showing lightly armed Finnish ski troops destroying two Soviet armored divisions. Watching those newsreels in America, U.S. Army leaders tried to prepare for the coming conflict, in the face of much public opposition.

The army’s winter equipment hadn’t been updated in decades, nor were any units trained for winter operations. Brigadier General Irving J. Phillipson, then stationed at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York, knew that time was limited. He wanted to try something the U.S. Army had never attempted: winter tactical training.

Inspired by those scenes of Finns on skis fighting a numerically and technologically stronger foe, Phillipson sought permission from his superior, Lieutenant General Hugh Drum, to test winter maneuvers at Pine Camp, notorious for its heavy snow, borne on winds from Lake Ontario. In January and February 1940, two years before Pearl Harbor, Phillipson and Drum conducted the army’s first known winter tactical training exercise. On February 26, the Plattsburgh Daily Press reported: “Winter Maneuvers May Revolutionize Army Life; Experiment Is a Success. Skis and snowshoes, toboggans and white camouflage shrouds may henceforth be donned as an integral part of the Army future training program.”

At almost the same time, while skiing in Vermont, Minot “Minnie” Dole and his National Ski Patrol leadership discussed the need for a military ski unit. Dole lobbied the army, and in September, Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall authorized six ski patrols (platoons, really) drawn from infantry divisions in the states of New York and Washington. But it wasn’t until Greek troops whipped the Italians in the mountains of Albania that Marshall got serious. In October 1941, he ordered the formation of the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington. Dole and the National Ski Patrol got busy recruiting.

Beyond World War II, a reactivated 10th Infantry Division trained draftees for the Korean conflict in the flatlands of Kansas, then tested the first major overseas troop rotation into Germany during the early Cold War, serving on the central German plains to defend against a potential Soviet invasion. The division came to Fort Drum in 1985 and earned the title of the most-deployed division in the U.S. Army, serving wherever the nation called: in Somalia, where its soldiers fought in the Battle of Mogadishu in October 1993, remaining as the last U.S. troops there as part of the United Nations mission; re-establishing democratic control in Haiti in 1994; and 20 years of deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The division was the first conventional force to enter Afghanistan following the September 11 terrorist attacks, and its troops were among the last to depart in September 2021.

The museum offers a unique view for anyone interested in ski history, military history and the U.S. Army through the decades. We look forward to welcoming you into our expanded gallery spaces when we reopen our doors in March 2022. The museum will be open from 9:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Until then, follow us at Facebook.com/FortDrumMuseum. Climb to Glory, and ski safe! 

Sepp Scanlin is director of the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum Museum.

10th Mountain Division Hall of Fame Inducts
Roger and Deborah Bankart Eddy

In September, the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum Warrior Legend Hall of Fame inducted five new members, including Major Roger Eddy and his wife, Deborah Bankart Eddy.

Deborah Bankart, certified as a ski instructor in 1939, directed the Hanover (New Hampshire) Ski School. When filmmaker John Jay joined the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment in 1941, Bankart took over his film-touring circuit and used it to recruit for the 87th and then for the 10th Mountain Division. In 1944 she volunteered for the Red Cross and served with the 10th in Italy, with the rank of captain. Roger Eddy served as commander of K Company, 87th Regiment, in the Aleutians, Northern Apennines and Po Valley campaigns. He earned the Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster and Bronze Star.

The Hall of Fame also inducted new members Brigadier General Onslow S. Rolfe, the first commander of the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment, who served until 1942 when he took command of the Mountain Training Center Camp Hale; Command Sergeant Major Christoper K. Greca, an Army Ranger who served with the 10th from 2004 to 2011; and Staff Sergeant Michael H. Ollis, who on August 28, 2013, sacrificed his own life to shield a wounded Polish officer from the blast of a suicide bomber. He received the Distinguished Service Cross.