ISHA Awards

International Skiing History Association names the year’s best works on sport’s heritage.

Watch video of the ISHA Awards program.

The International Skiing History Association this winter honors the Swiss Academic Ski Club and the year’s best ski-history books, films and websites published in calendar year 2019.

The Swiss Academic Ski Club (SAS) receives ISHA’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for more than 90 years of promoting and preserving the history of the sport. Founded in 1924, its wide-ranging mission includes leading the Swiss alpine and nordic university teams, organizing races and events and publishing Der Schneehase, a highly regarded ski-history compendium. SAS Schneehase president Ivan Wagner accepts the award, which focuses on SAS accomplishments in documenting ski history through 39 deeply researched and illustrated editions of Schneehase since 1924.

ISHA also present its Stewardship Award to the Holding family for their decades-long commitment to preserving the history of the Sun Valley ski resort, which they purchased in 1977.

Established in 1993, the ISHA Awards are presented every year to creators of outstanding ski history books, films and DVDs, websites, museum exhibits and other works of creative media. The winners of this year’s ISHA Awards are:

ULLR AWARD Presented for a single outstanding contribution or several contributions to skiing’s overall historical record in published book form.

Skis in the Art of War By K.B.E.E. Eimeleus. Translation and commentary by William D. Frank, with additional commentary by E. John B. Allen

Kalle Bror Emil Aejmelaeus-Äimä (1882-1935) grew up on skis in Finland, when it was still a duchy in the Russian Empire. At age 17 he ran off to fight in the Boer War, on the losing side. He then fought in a South American revolution, became a sea captain, and joined the U.S. Army as a cavalry sergeant stationed in Texas. He then worked as a cowboy. Back in Europe in 1906, he entered the Imperial military academy in St Petersburg, became a Russian cavalry officer stationed near Kiev, earned a degree in archaeology (a cover for spying in Ottoman lands), taught skiing and fencing, and competed in the first modern pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics.  That year he wrote Skis in the Art of War, in Russian, hoping to update Russian Army skiing tactics based on the Finnish model.

Eimeleus barely survived cavalry action in the Great War. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Finland declared independence. Eimeleus joined the Finnish Army to help win a civil war with the local communists. He joined Finland’s right-wing government as head of the War Office, as adjutant to two presidents, and later, as military attaché in London, Moscow and The Hague.

The new Soviet Army took skiing seriously, but not seriously enough: In the Winter War of 1939-40 the Finnish army, 20,000 strong, inflicted half a million casualties on unprepared Soviet troops. In response, the Soviet government organized a massive ski mobilization prior to the German invasion in 1941. The Soviet counteroffensive against Nazi Germany during the winter of 1941–42 owed much of its success to the ski battalions formed during the ski mobilization, and to Skis in the Art of War.

This new translation by William D. Frank, in collaboration with ISHA’s own E. John B. Allen, includes most of the original illustrations, plus essays on the historical context of European military skiing by the two collaborators. The footnotes contain a wealth of historical detail. Frank, a competitive biathlete in the early 1980s, is now a leading authority on the history of biathlon, especially in Russia. Skiing History published his fine history of Russian biathlon in the June 2009 issue. He expanded that work into a doctoral dissertation in history at the University of Washington, and it became his book Everyone to Skis!, which won the Ullr Award in 2015. –Seth Masia

Skis in the Art of War by K.B.E.E. Eimeleus. Translation and commentary by William D. Frank, with additional commentary by E. John B. Allen. 288 pages. Northern Illinois University/Cornell University Press, $37.95 hardbound; Kindle edition $9.95.

Skispuren: Internationale Konferenz zur Geschichte des Wintersports (Ski Tracks: International Conference on the History of Winter Sports) Edited by Rudolf Müllner and Christof Thöny

In December 2015, academic presenters from six countries discussed the development of alpine skiing and other winter sports at an international conference, with a section devoted to Austrian skiing. Skispuren is a collection of these 19 papers, with five in English. Annette Hofmann’s keynote address detailed Cristl Cranz’s leadership of German skiing in the 1930s and her role during the Nazi period. Christof Thöny gave us, for the first time, an insight into the importance of Arlberg ski pioneer Viktor Sohm. Michael Huber claimed—and I think he is correct—that Kitzbühel was the founding venue of downhill racing, rather than the much-trumpeted English race, the Roberts of Kandahar. Other presenters covered alpine ski touring in Sweden, British POWS interned in Switzerland during World War I, and a smattering of little-known subjects. With well-chosen illustrations and good bibliographies, Skispuren is a welcome addition to the modern analyses of winter sports. —E. John B. Allen

Rudolf Müllner and Christof Thöny (editors), Skispuren: Internationale Konferenz zur Geschichte des Wintersports (Bludenz: Lorenzi Verlag, 2019). Cost: €15 ($17) plus postage. Available from: www.lorenzi-verlag.at.

Unique and Unknown: The Story of Biathlon in the United States By Arthur Stegen

During the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games, Arthur Stegen was at USA House talking to a fan who asked, “Biathlon? Whoever though up that sport?” An international competitor in the 1970s and a longtime coach for the US biathlon team as well as for Armed Forces Sports, Stegen took offense. He replied, “It wasn’t someone who thought skis were meant for sliding down banisters in slopestyle.” He went on to explain the origin of hunting on skis—a utilitarian purpose, he explained, unlike some of today’s more contrived events. He decided a book was in order. He had published a book simply titled Biathlon in 1979, prior to the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Winter Games. An updated book would tie in the U.S. success in biathlon in the past four decades.

Thus was born Unique and Unknown: The Story of Biathlon in the United States, a definitive text on the 51-year history of the sport in the United States, with pictures from every era. In Part 1 Stegen answers the question “What is biathlon?” by detailing the history of the sport—including the evolution of shooting ranges and penalties—and how biathlon became an Olympic event (the concept of the complete athlete appealed to the IOC). Part II explains who the biathletes are, specifically, who represented the US on the world stage in biathlon, from soldier-athletes such as 1960 Olympian Larry Damon, through to 21st century stars Lowell Bailey, Tim Burke and Susan Dunklee. Although Stegen does not tell everyone’s story, he does touch on the sport’s most significant people, from America’s first female biathlete, Holly Beattie, to upcoming biathletes like Sean Doherty.

Stegen also explains what it takes to compete in biathlon and the future of the sport in the United States. Two appendices include the medalists in the U.S. national championships, from 1965 to 2017 for the men and 1980 to 2018 for women; and the medalists plus the U.S. competitors from the Olympics and world championships for all biathlon races, including relays, with times and penalties. Also included is a glossary of biathlon terms.

While the book might not hold the interest of what Stegen calls the “unaware” public, it’s a valuable compendium for those interested in all aspects of biathlon. –Peggy Shinn

Unique and Unknown: The Story of Biathlon in the United States, by Arthur Stegen. Great Life Press. $29.95 hardcover

Leisure Cultures and the Making of Modern Ski Resorts. Edited by Phillipp Strobl and Aneta Podkalicka.

We’re familiar with stories of how the stem-to-parallel ski teaching method of Hannes Schneider made its way from Austria’s Arlberg region to North America in the 1930s. And how the chairlift, invented around the same time at Sun Valley, Idaho, came to convey skiers up mountains around the world. What’s new is that these stories have become the subject of scholarly university research. How skiing spread around the globe has come under the microscope of the hot, relatively new academic discipline of “transnational” study . . . how culture is transmitted across national borders. Leisure Cultures and the Making of Modern Ski Resorts, just published in England, is a compendium of nine heavily researched papers that explore this topic.

Reading the book is daunting; in some places, it’s loaded with the turgid verbiage employed in academic writing. “The practice of recreational skiing can be regarded as a form of cultural participation and cultural practice,” writes Polish professor Stanislaw Jedrzejewski. “This expanded definition encompasses personal culture manifested through appearance, clothes, awareness processes, and modes of behavior that are regulated by ‘dissipated canons.’” (Editor’s note: “Dissipated canons” appears to refer to unprincipled or arbitrary authorities, or arbiters of taste.) Such passages aside, Leisure Cultures is a work of fresh and fascinating ski history. For example I learned from Professor Jedrzejewski how ski facilities in Poland developed, and failed to develop, over four decades under the Communist planned economy. Mindless incompetence was rampant. Transnationalism wasn’t in vogue.

By contrast, Austria’s Arlberg ski technique and teaching methods spread across the entire world. The disciples and descendants of St. Anton’s Hannes Schneider came to direct dozens of ski schools in North America and the Southern Hemisphere. The Bundessportheim in St. Christof was directed by Stefan Kruckenhauser, whose influence was worldwide. How it all happened is told in rich detail.

Chapters on Swedish cross country skiing and resort development in Australia and Turkey are similarly robust in factual detail. A chapter by two American authors explores how movies and popular magazines affected public perception of the sport in the 1960s. This is a serious book for serious ski historians. –John Fry

Leisure Cultures and the Making of Modern Ski Resorts, edited by Phillipp Strobl and Aneta Podkalicka. 2019 Palgrave MacMilland, London. $109.99, ebook $84.99 at palgrave.com/us/book/9783319920245. Individual chapters $29.95 digitally.

SKADE AWARD Presented for an outstanding work on regional ski history, or for an outstanding work published in book form that is focused in part on ski history.

Heja Persson!: Sámisk triumf i Vasaloppet (Go, Persson! Sámi Triumph in the Vasaloppet) By Isak Lidstrom

Published in Swedish, this is the story of the Sámi cross-country skier Johan Abraham Persson (1898- 1971), the surprise winner of the 1929 Vasaloppet. And it’s the story of the Sámi contribution to the history of skiing in Sweden. The indigenous Sámi were the pioneers when Swedish ski sport emerged in the late 19th century. However, even within their own sport, the Sámi experienced racism. Persson grew up in Skierfa, in Lapland’s backcountry. His Vasaloppet victory, over 87 of Sweden’s finest skiers, was a breakthrough for Sámi cultural identity, and over the decades has assumed mythic proportions.

 Reviewers in Swedish call this “a gem of a book,” for its portrayal of the cultural nuances of the race. The Vasaloppet, first run in 1922, was still a novelty, and drew participation by fewer than 100 top skiers – far from the 15,000 citizen-racers who start in the modern event. At the time, Swedish elites in the south of the country viewed skiing as a utilitarian activity mastered by farmers and other rural, working class people. Upper-class amateurs went in for sports with no practical applications: skating, curling, sledding. A cultural gulf yawned between Sweden’s prosperous southern and impoverished northern provinces, and the Sámi, who migrated across northern Finland, Sweden and Norway, weren’t even regarded as true Swedes. Persson came from a family of lake fishermen, whose fixed abode drew scorn from “authentic” reindeer-herding Sámi.

True, Swedes regarded Sámi as “natural” skiers, who didn’t have to train for the sport. Ironically, that stereotype led to an attitude that, because virtue lay in training and hardship, victory should morally go to a Swede. This sentiment paralleled the Olympic prejudice that amateurs were morally superior to people who made a living from sport. Persson, who trained by hunting wolves with his brother, had to travel 600 miles from Lapland to Mora, where the race was held. Lidström provides a colorful account of that trip, and of preparations for the race, and the dramatic race itself. At one point, the Crown Prince’s private train stopped, blocking half the field from crossing the track. Some racers felt this was a casual expression of the contempt felt by southerners for northerners. Persson took an early lead, but with no one to follow, got lost in the woods. He then had to overtake the local favorites and sprint to victory.

Isak Lidström is a sports historian and PhD candidate in Sports Science at Malmö University. His 2015 book Zorn, kyrkloppen och idrottsrörelsen (Zorn, Church Races and the Sports Movement), won an ISHA Skade honorable mention. –Seth Masia

Lost Ski Areas of the Berkshires By Jeremy Davis

The Berkshires of Massachusetts have long been known as a winter sports paradise. Forty-four ski areas arose from the 1930s to the 1970s. The Thunderbolt Ski Trail put the Berkshires on the map for challenging terrain. Major ski resorts like Brodie Mountain sparked the popularity of night skiing with lighted trails. All-inclusive resorts—like Oak n' Spruce, Eastover and Jug End—brought thousands of new skiers into the sport between the 1940s and 1970s. Over the years, many of these ski areas faded away and are nearly forgotten. Jeremy Davis of the New England/Northeast Lost Ski Areas Project brings these lost locations back to life, chronicling their rich histories and contributions to the ski industry.

Jeremy Davis is a skier, writer and meteorologist. Originally from Chelmsford, Massachusetts, he graduated from Lyndon State College with a degree in meteorology and has been employed at Weather Routing Inc. since 2000. In 1998, he founded the New England and Northeast Lost Ski Areas Project (www.nelsap.org), which documents the history of former ski areas throughout the region; the site won a Cyber Award for best ski history website from the International Skiing History Association (ISHA). In 2000, he was elected to the board of directors of the New England Ski Museum and continues to serve today. He is the author of four books: Lost Ski Areas of the White Mountains, Lost Ski Areas of Southern Vermont, Lost Ski Areas of the Southern Adirondacks and Lost Ski Areas of the Northern Adirondacks. Both Adirondacks books won ISHA Skade Awards. He also serves on the editorial review board of ISHA’s magazine, Skiing History. The author resides with his husband, Scott, in Saratoga Springs, New York, and is a frequent skier in the Berkshires.

Lost Ski Areas of the Berkshires, by Jeremy Davis. 240 pages. The History Press. $29.95 hardcover, $15 softcover, Kindle edition available.

Honorable Mention: Snowboarding in Southern Vermont: From Burton to the U.S. Open by Brian L. Knight

BALDUR AWARD A new category of awards presented for books that have not been written as ski histories, but possess valuable historical content.

Ski Inc. 2020 By Chris Diamond with Andy Bigford.

This is a sequel to Diamond’s Ski Inc, a “part memoir, part business history of the modern ski resort,” which won a 2016 ISHA book award. Chris Diamond experienced firsthand the resort conglomerations over the past 30 years. Publicly traded Vail Resorts has come to own 37 ski areas, and privately owned Alterra owns 15. Pre-season sales of the Epic and Ikon passes are soaring. The two companies, along with 50-plus partner resorts that accept their passes, now account for half of all U.S. skier visits. And they maximize profits by owning retail stores, hotels, transportation companies and even local media.

The first half of the book recounts the ascendancy of Vail Resorts and the response to it in the formation of the competing conglomerate Alterra. Here is extraordinarily valuable new history, previously scattered through newspapers and the pages of Ski Area Management, now consolidated for the first time in a single account. Diamond provides histories of Boyne Resorts, POWDR ski areas, and Peak Resorts (recently purchased by Vail). He explains how independent areas are surviving and collaborating in offering season passes while raising the obvious questions about the challenges they face. Diamond concludes that all the changes, especially those instigated by Vail Resorts under CEO Rob Katz, have “helped re-energize a sport that had languished for years.” He suggests that resorts have made skiing so cheap and attractive that the sport will boom – but admits he’s seen no data to prove it will happen. In the years ahead it’s possible that bargain advance-purchase passes will cause skier-visit volume to rise. Unavoidable, though, is the observation that skier visits can rise statistically in volume even as the population of active skiers and snowboarders might simultaneously decline. It might happen if potential new skiers fail to research the myriad deals available, exposing themselves to the highest window ticket price in history. And the lift ticket is only a small part of the cost of skiing, which is obviously affected by the cost of buying or renting gear, transportation, lodging and food. SKI Inc 2020 is a book full of thoughtful conjecture, its pages spilling with information that will enrich the history of skiing for years to come. –John Fry

SKI Inc 2020 by Chris Diamond with Andy Bigford. $29.95 hardcover, 272 pages, 40 photos, index. Published by Ski Diamond Publishing, Steamboat Springs CO. Ebook at Amazon.

Alpine Cooking: Recipes and Stories from Europe’s Grand Mountaintops By Meredith Erikson

This is a lushly photographed cookbook and travelogue showcasing the regional cuisines of the Alps, including 80 recipes for the elegant, rustic dishes served in the chalets and mountain huts situated among the alpine peaks of Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and France. In Alpine Cooking, food writer Meredith Erickson travels through Europe’s Alps–by car, on foot, and via funicular–collecting the recipes and stories of the legendary stubes, chalets, and refugios. On the menu is an eclectic mix of mountain dishes: radicchio and speck dumplings, fondue brioche, the best schnitzel recipe, Bombardinos, warming soups, wine cave fonduta, a Chartreuse soufflé, and a host of decadent strudels and confections (Salzburger Nockerl, anyone?) served with a bottle of Riesling plucked from the snow bank beside your dining table.

Organized by country and including logistical tips, detailed maps, the alpine address book, and narrative interludes discussing alpine art and wine, the Tour de France, high-altitude railways, grand European hotels, and other essential topics, this gorgeous and spectacularly photographed cookbook is a romantic ode to life in the mountains for food lovers, travelers, skiers, hikers, and anyone who feels the pull of the peaks.

Meredith Erickson has co-authored The Art of Living According to Joe Beef, Le Pigeon, Olympia Provisions, Kristen Kish Cooking, and Claridge’s: The Cookbook. She is currently working on The Frasca Cookbook. She has written for The New York Times, Elle, Saveur, Condé Nast Traveler, and Lucky Peach. When not traveling, she can be found in Montreal, Quebec (with friends and family at Joe Beef).

 Hardcover | $50.00 Published by Ten Speed Press Oct 15, 2019 | 352 Pages | 8-1/2 x 11 | ISBN 9781607748748

The Man Behind the Maps: Legendary Ski Artist James Niehues By Jason Blevins, with illustrations by Jim Niehues.

Ski map artist James Niehues has published a new coffee-table book that includes more than 200 of his hand-painted trail maps, with text by journalist Jason Blevins. With eight geographically themed chapters, the hardcover book is the definitive collection of the art created by Niehues during his 30-year career. In the modern digital age, Niehues may be the last of the great mapmakers. The book showcases his exacting process, in which he first captures aerial shots and then explores the mountain himself before painstakingly illustrating every run, chairlift, tree and cliff band by hand. Over the years, he has created maps for resorts across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, with hundreds of millions of printed copies distributed to skiers on the slopes. “I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of fitting an entire mountain on a page. Mountains are wonderful puzzles, and I knew if I painted with the right amount of detail and care, they would last,” says Niehues. “A good design is relevant for a few years, maybe even a decade. But a well-made map is used for generations.” With Big Sky Resort chosen to illustrate the cover and a foreword by pioneering big-mountain skier Chris Davenport, the compilation includes trail maps from iconic destinations such as Jackson Hole, Squaw Valley, Alta, Snowbird, Aspen Highlands and Vail. The book is 11.5 inches tall and opens to a spread of 24 inches wide, the perfect size to showcase the biggest ski mountains in the world. Niehues went all-in on the production process, with Italian art-quality printing, heavyweight matte-coated paper, and a lay-flat binding.

FILM AWARD Presented for an outstanding contribution to the historical record of skiing in photographic or film/digital form

North Country Produced by Anthony Lahout, written and directed by Nick Martini

In Littleton, N.H., near Cannon Mountain, Lahout’s Country Clothing and Ski Shop has done business at the same location since 1920. Fourteen-year-old Herbert Lahout emigrated from Syria in 1898, and became a railroad laborer. He married his wife Anne in 1919 and the couple sold groceries from a horse-drawn wagon. The following year they moved the business into Littleton’s Old Grange Hall, and lived upstairs. Herb died in 1934 and, in the depths of the Depression, Anne was left to run the store with her kids Gladys, 14, and Joe, 12. Joe learned to ski, and the sport became his lifelong passion. After returning from service in the South Pacific during World War II, he added skis to the store’s inventory of hardware, dry goods, beer and groceries. Under the management of Joe’s three sons, and now of his grandson Anthony, Lahout’s developed into a full-service ski and outdoor store, with six locations in Littleton and Lincoln, half an hour south.

Joe died in 2016, on his 94th birthday. This 21-minute film tells the family’s story, with plenty of vintage ski footage from the Franconia Notch region. Lahout’s became integral to the history of skiing in New Hampshire. It’s a story of tough people thriving in a harsh climate – people who ventured out into the wider world but returned to the store to support their parents and grandparents. Director Nick Martini runs Stept Productions, making commercials for brands like Toyota, Oakley, Columbia, The North Face, Under Armour and even Tim Hortons. He grew up in the Boston area, skiing in New Hampshire. After earning his MBA, executive producer Anthony Lahout worked in finance before taking marketing jobs at Smith Sport Optics and Spyder Skiwear. He returned to Littleton in 2015 to take over the family business. See a clip from North Country.

Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story Directed by Patrick Creadon Produced by Joseph Berry Jr., Jeff Conroy, Christine O'Malley

Ski Bum is a 90-minute review of Warren Miller’s extraordinary career, told through archival footage and one final interview with Warren himself. For decades, the ski season didn't really begin until the latest spectacular skiing film was released by Warren Miller Productions, filled with balletic, slow-motion mountain footage of death-defying ski and snowboard stunts. Ski Bum—titled after the moniker the Seattle-area legend often used for himself—celebrates the life and art of one of the most prolific sports-documentary pioneers. Credited with more than 750 sports films, Miller started as a surfer in his native Hollywood before moving to the Pacific Northwest to practically invent the winter-sports film genre. As Creadon's homage shows, Miller's simple 8mm movies from the 1950s snowballed into a 50-year commercial-film career that set the standard for audacious stunts. But success did not come without hardship; Miller used to promote his films on exhausting 100-city road tours, which took a toll on his family life and finances. Based on a 2018 interview the 93-year-old Miller gave shortly before his death at his Orcas Island home, Ski Bum explores the techniques used by the veteran filmmaker, who also served as cinematographer, editor, producer—and often live narrator—of his films. Using interviews with famous daredevil skiers, never-before-seen outtakes, and home movies, Ski Bum is a must-see for any ripper or shredder forever in search of the gnarliest powder.

Patrick Creadon is a director and cinematographer born in 1967 in Riverside, Illinois. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1989 with a BA in International Relations. Creadon is married to his collaborator, producer Christine O'Malley; they co-founded their full-scale media production company, O'Malley Creadon Productions, which is based in Los Angeles and focuses on nonfiction storytelling.

 Honorable Mention: Abandoned by Lio DelPiccolo, Sara Beam Robbins and Grant Robbins.

CYBER AWARD Presented for creating a website that contributes substantially to the preservation, distribution and expansion of skiing’s historical record.

DrySlopeNews.com By Patrick Thorne

Artificial slopes, using carpet or matting in place of snow, bring skiing to areas without reliable natural snowfall. Skiers have used them for over a century, but the earliest artificial surfaces manufactured specifically for skiing date from the 1950s. Since then, more than 1,000 have been built in more than 50 countries worldwide. The slopes come in lots of different shapes and sizes and there have been several different companies involved in their manufacturing over the past 70 years, so no two are ever the same. Dry ski slopes are essential for teaching millions of people to ski or snowboard. They can take the basic skills acquired on artificial slopes and ski at conventional ski resorts around the world. Indeed, the author claims, dryland slopes have been a major factor in the success of the global ski industry. Many established dry slopes have strong community support, enabling children and people with special needs to learn to ski or board as well as practice regularly. They have also bred some of the world’s best skiers and snowboarders who have gone on to World Cup and Olympic glory. DrySlopeNews.com includes a directory of existing and former dry slope operations, with a timeline history going back to the Vienna Schneepalast of 1927. The site is the creation of ski writer Patrick Thorne, who learned to ski on a dry slope as a school child in the late 1970s. Thorne has covered skiing from his base in the United Kingdom for more than 30 years. He operates the news site InTheSnow.com and a sister site, indoorsnownews,com, covering the snowdome universe.

Honorable Mention: From Chimney Corner: An Illustrated History of Slovenian Skiing by Aleš Guček

Park City, Utah
April 3, 2014

The International Skiing History Association Awards, established in 1993, are presented annually to authors of outstanding histories, films and DVDs, Websites, museum exhibits, and for lifetime achievements in broadcasting and other media. The honored work is judged to have added significantly and artistically to the ski historical record.

An ISHA Service Award may also be presented to an individual for substantial long-term support of a ski history organization in light of ISHA’s mission “to preserve skiing history and increase public awareness of the sport’s heritage.”

The awards are presented for work published or formally completed before the end of the preceding calendar year. For example, ISHA’s 2013 awards, presented in April 2014, are for books and films completed and available for review by the judges before the end of 2013.

ISHA Awards are presented in the following categories, though not every category is honored every year:

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Presented for contributions over a substantial period of time to ski history, ski journalism, photography, film, radio or television.

ULLR AWARD: Presented for a single outstanding contribution or several contributions to skiing’s overall historical record in published book form.

SKADE AWARD: Presented for an outstanding work on regional ski history, or for an outstanding work published in book form that is focused in part on ski history.

FILM OR PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD: Presented for outstanding contribution to the historical record of skiing in photographic or film/digital form.

CURATORIAL AWARD: Presented for outstanding work in curating a nationally recognized ski museum through its exhibits and publications.

CYBER AWARD: Presented for creating a Website that contributes substantially to the preservation, distribution and expansion of skiing’s historical record.

SERVICE AWARD: Presented for outstanding work over a substantial period of time with an organization engaged in the creation and preservation of skiing’s historical record.

SPECIAL AWARD: Presented for outstanding contribution to the historical record outside the above categories.

Michael Horn
ISHA Lifetime Achievement Award for Broadcasting

For half a century, Austria’s Michael Horn used his skills as an announcer to entertain and educate television and radio audiences, and spectators at ski races around the world.
       Horn began his announcing career—or “hobby,” as he calls it—at the age of only 15, promoting a Kitzbühel tennis tournament by driving around town in a car with a PA system. From that modest start, he advanced to announcing the famed Hahnenkamm ski races in 1963 when he was only 23. When the press chief for the Innsbruck Olympics heard Horn’s manner of speaking in different languages—he speaks seven—he recruited him to be the official speaker at both the 1964 and 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck. Horn quickly went from being known as the “Voice of the Hahnenkamm” to also being dubbed Austria’s “Voice of Winter.” 
       Other Horn announcing appearances have included the 1982 Alpine Ski World Championships at Schladming, Austria, the 1985 Nordic World Championships at Seefeld in Austria, and the World Cup finals at Vysoke Tatry, Czechoslovakia. He worked as a commentator for the Austrian Radio-Television Network (ORF) at ski races in Austria, France and Italy.
       In 1980, Horn was invited to Colorado, where he provided race information in his trademark announcing style to Aspen spectators for the next 10 years. While in the U.S., he called World Cup races at Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly Valley, and at Vail/Beaver Creek, including the 1989 World Alpine Ski Championships. In 1988, when Australia celebrated its bicentennial with World Cup races in Thredbo, Horn was the announcer.
       Horn was there in 1964 to call it when Billy Kidd and Jimmie Heuga became the first American men to win Olympic medals in alpine skiing. He also announced the victories of the “Equipe de France” with Jean-Claude Killy, Adrien Duvillard and Guy Perillat. He watched the strong wave of Canadian downhillers Todd Brooker, Ken Read and Steve Podborski, and he announced the wins of Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark and Italy’s Alberto Tomba. Horn also covered the only alpine victory of a Russian skier in 1980, when Valery Tsyganov won the downhill in Aspen; Horn also was there with his microphone when in 1982, American Steve Mahre became world champion in the giant slalom at Schladming. He also witnessed the excited pandemonium of the Austrian crowds when their heroes Karl Schranz, Franz Klammer and Hermann Maier set race records in the Hahnenkamm downhill.
       Through it all, Horn was still the Voice of the Hahnenkamm, acting as chief press officer for 24 years and announcing races from 1963 until 2008. When he retired, the Kitzbüheler Ski Club made him one of only three honorary members.
       Horn has not always held a microphone in his hand. He graduated with a degree in economics in 1965 from the University of Innsbruck, and began his “real” job in 1966 at Kitzbühel’s Aquarena spa, where he was general manager until his retirement in 2001. He also served as vice-mayor of Kitzbühel and did a stint in the state parliament in Vienna. In spare moments, he has announced hockey games and tennis tournaments for Austrian TV and radio.
       Michael Horn and his wife Christl live in Kitzbühel. — Stephanie Boyle Mays

Skade Award

Downhill in Montana: Early Day Skiing in the Treasure State
By Stan Cohen
       The recently released DVD Downhill in Montana: Early Day Skiing in the Treasure State was issued as a companion piece to the book of the same name by author Stan Cohen. Both illustrate the quick rise of skiing in Montana.
       The film uses original footage, stills and interviews to tell the state’s ski story. The tale starts in the 1880s with the first ski trip into Yellowstone, but most of the DVD covers the sport after the introduction of lifts in the 1930s.
       Much of the footage was provided by the heirs of Walter Morris, who owned a ski shop in Missoula from the late 1930s to the early 1970s. Morris shot 16-mm film of seemingly every ski event he ever attended. His footage is combined with filmed interviews and photographic stills to cover a gamut of skiing subjects, including the 1935 Anaconda Winter Carnival, tales of ski trains and the start of areas such as Big Sky, Bridger Bowl and Whitefish.
       The book traces the history of more than 60 ski areas in the state. Pages are laid out like a scrapbook, with accompanying text that relates what has happened from the area’s inception to the present day (or, in some cases, its demise). Included are reproductions of old articles, programs, people profiles, ticket stubs, advertising, photographs and other documentation of each area’s history. —Morten Lund
      
       Downhill in Montana, Early Day Skiing in the Treasure State; DVD (2012) produced by Pictorial Histories and Sunrise Studios, 96 minutes. Book (2010) by author Stan Cohen (Pictorial Histories Publishing Company), paperback, 278 pages with black-and-white vintage photographs and illustrations.

Skade Award

Highway to Heaven
By Peter Southwell-Keely
       Ten resorts, strung from the Thredbo River to the summit of Mt. Kosciuszko in New South Wales, are featured in this lavishly illustrated Australian ski history. Historical descriptions of each resort and approximately 400 photographs, with highly informative maps, are intertwined with chapters on Australia’s first ski troops, ski patrols, ski jumping, cross-country skiing, and the influence of Europeans. Throughout the book, many individuals who made a difference are also profiled.
       The most interesting chapters deal with the development of Perisher, an amalgamation of four towns: Perisher Valley, Smiggin Holes, Guthega and Blue Cow. Starting in 1945 there were three huts in the Perisher-Smiggins area; by 1956, nine more huts had been built. Now Perisher is the largest ski resort in the Southern Hemisphere and boasts 98 lodges, 29 ski lifts and the Ski Tube, a rack railway that includes an 1,805-foot tunnel.
       Six appendices include Winter Olympians and Paralympians, ski club results from the 1950s and 1960s and a list of ski clubs with founding dates (such as the Kiandra Pioneer Ski Club, ca. 1881). Almost 300 references support this well-produced tome that will appeal to anyone interested in Australian skiing. —E. John B. Allen
      
       Highway to Heaven: A History of Perisher and the Ski Resorts Along the Kosciuszko Road by Peter Southwell-Keely; Perisher Historical Society (2013); 400-plus photographs, hardcover, 260 pages.

Skade Award

Ski the Great Potato
By Margaret Fuller, Doug Fuller and Jerry Painter
       Ski The Great Potato provides the histories of all 21 areas and resorts that are still operating in Idaho, as well as stories on 72 areas that no longer exist. 
       Each ski area story has a detailed explanation of how readers could find the area in their travels. The areas are photographed as they appeared when fully operational, or what is left of them today. 
       It opens with a fascinating account of the Eastport-Kingsgate ski jump that was located right on the Idaho-British Columbia border. The jump opened in 1928 and had an in-run in the United States, with the jumpers landing in Canada. It closed in 1940 when the owner decided to start a ski area nearby. 
       Another interesting chapter recounts the founding and development of Lookout Pass, which at one time was the home ski area of Joe Jay Jalbert, one of skiing’s great filmmakers. It started in 1936 when a group of skiers hitched a ride on a Northern Pacific railroad train that took them to the summit of Lookout Mountain. One of the longest chapters details the founding and development of Sun Valley. The authors also include information about prominent people in Idaho ski history, from the Engen brothers to Picabo Street and Muffy Davis, who skied and competed together at Rotarun in Hailey. 
       Margaret Fuller has written and co-authored five books on hiking in Idaho. Her son, Doug Fuller, a former ski coach, and Jerry Painter, an outdoors columnist, worked with her on this project. –Tom West
      
       Ski The Great Potato by Margaret Fuller, Doug Fuller and Jerry Painter; Trail Guide Books (2013), 293 pages with black-and-white photographs.

Skade Award

Tales from Two Valleys: Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows
By Eddy Starr Ancinas
       Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows skiers will delight in reading the familiar and not-so-familiar accounts of how these two leading Sierra resorts got started. Eddy Ancinas’ well-researched book will also appeal to anyone interested in the history of skiing in the 1950s and ’60s, when the sport exploded in popularity. This growth was due in large part to such pioneering visionaries as Wayne Poulsen and Alexander Cushing at Squaw Valley. Lesser known is John Reily, who dreamed of a family-oriented resort at the adjacent valley, which later came to be called Alpine Meadows.
       Eddy Ancinas tells the story of the ongoing conflict between Poulsen, who had the land, and Cushing, who had access to financing. The two strong-willed men disagreed on “just about everything,” she writes. Poulsen was later voted out of the corporation at a stockholder meeting when he was traveling out of the country. 
       Ancinas also describes how Cushing applied for the 1960 Winter Olympics to get publicity for his five-year-old resort, which had only one chairlift at the time. By clever political maneuvering, Cushing succeeded in having the Games awarded to Squaw Valley. After near disaster—first a lack of snow, then almost too much snow—the Games were a great success.
       Ancinas accurately describes the continuing conflict between Cushing and the various state and federal agencies that control safety and conservation issues. She concludes that Cushing’s guiding philosophy was, “It is easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.”
       In 2010 a private equity firm, KSL, bought Squaw Valley and a year later, Alpine Meadows, consolidating the two valleys. Ancinas asks a relevant question: “Will the ski experience defined by Poulsen, Cushing and Reily be forever changed from a way of life to a highly developed form of industrial tourism?”  
       The dedication “To Osvaldo—for getting on the chairlift with me” refers to Ancinas’ husband, who was a member of the 1960 Argentine Olympic team. Eddy and Osvaldo live and have raised their family in a house on the Truckee River, between Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows. —Henrik Bull

Tales from Two Valleys: Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows by Eddy Starr Ancinas; History Press, February 2013; softcover, 160 pages

Film Award

Crash Reel
Produced by Lucy Walker

       Crash Reel by filmmaker Lucy Walker tells the story of Olympic snowboarding hopeful Kevin Pearce and his tragic accident during a training run in Park City, Utah, before the 2010 Winter Games. Pearce slammed his head on the icy wall of the halfpipe and suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The film positions Pearce as the one guy who could have beaten superstar Shaun White and explores their rivalry in the halfpipe, a sport in which the most elite athletes routinely launch off 22-foot ice walls at 30-plus miles an hour, soaring almost 40 feet in the air. The margin of error is slim to none and injuries happen all of the time, from the professional to the recreational level.
       Crash Reel examines “extreme” athletes and their quest to obtain fame and fortune. It also shines a light on the extreme sports lifestyle and the lack of training methods and coaches. Walker focuses on Pearce’s family and the price they pay for their son’s accident, as well as the pressure that accompanies big sponsorship deals.
       In the last quarter of the film, Walker examines the lack of oversight and the insufficient safety net for extreme athletes who are willing to risk it all. She suggests that the lasting legacy of the industry might be the 173,000 sports- or action-related TBIs that are reported each year for people under the age of 20.
       Walker met Pearce in 2010, not long after his accident. Over time, she became convinced that, as she says: “The world of extreme sports posed questions that I couldn’t answer…When I watch big-wave surfing or halfpipe snowboarding, my eyes are glued to the screen. But half the reason I’m mesmerized is because it’s clear that the stakes are life and death…And Kevin’s story dramatizes just how dramatic the stakes are. It’s an exemplary study of risk and reward.” Walker’s strong writing and incisive storytelling capture the reality of extreme sports, from the glitz of the X Games to the harsh reality of the intensive care unit. (Pearce is now a motivational speaker, TV commentator and advocate for people affected by TBI and Down syndrome.)—Dan Egan
  
       To learn more about the film—and the related Love Your Brain advocacy campaign—go to www.thecrashreel.com.

Film Award

Legend of Aahhh’s
Produced by Greg Stump

       Seldom has a new ski movie been awaited as impatiently as Greg Stump’s Legend of Aahhh’s. Stump is the cinematographer who in 1988 produced Blizzard of Aahhh’s, a stunning work that captivated the emerging freestyle, extreme and snowboard generation, and its hitherto little-known stars. Two more action films followed. Then Stump turned to producing music videos and commercial work. Legend of Aahhh’s marks his return to producing a full-length feature about skiing.
       Stump spent the better part of two years trying different cuts and approaches to redact this film to a running length of 93 minutes. Legend endeavors to tell the history of ski moviemaking, as well as the cultural history of extreme skiing, powerfully visible today on magazine covers and in equipment and resort advertising.
       In Legend of Aahhh’s Stump pays generous tribute to his filmmaking antecedents, beginning in the 1920s with Arnold Fanck, Leni Riefenstahl, and on to John Jay, Dick Durrance, Warren Miller, Dick Barrymore and Roger Brown. Toward the end of the film, Stump shows the outstanding latter-day work of Teton Gravity, and notably of Matchstick Productions, the production quality and visuals of whose 21st century films largely exceed those of Stump, for reasons having a lot to do with advances in cinematographic technology. Stump was not a rival anyway. He withdrew from making films that exposed the actors to risk of death after two of his performers were almost killed in an avalanche in 1995. His was a wise, ethical, calculated decision.
       Much of the visual in Legend of Aahhh’s consists of action-packed series of skiers leaping and streaming down spectacular, precipitous terrain. The viewer gets a full serving of cliff-jumping, steep gully turn sequences, triggering of avalanches, and high-speed straight shots that take the breath away.
       Intermittently throughout Legend, Stump cuts to talking heads (Warren Miller’s appears most often) who offer their perspectives and recollections.
       Stump dedicates Legend to Barrymore, who defined why ski moviemakers have generally been unable to create works attractive to viewers living outside the ski world.
       “With a normal motion picture,” said Barrymore, “you shoot a film about a story. With a ski film, you make a story about the film you’ve shot.” Legend of Aahhh’s is among the best. —John Fry  

Legend of Aahhh's has a running time of 93 minutes. For more information, visit blizzardsnowstore.com.

Ullr Award

American Ski Resort: Architecture, Style, Experience
By Margaret Supplee Smith

       In American Ski Resort, Margaret Smith analyzes the vision, planning and construction that created North America’s winter mountain culture. She tells the story in 300 pages, punctuated by more than 300 well-chosen images of resorts, hotels and restaurants, houses and condominiums in New England, the Rockies, California and British Columbia. Some are renowned, like Idaho's Sun Valley; others are obscure, like Little Sugar Mountain in North Carolina.
    From New England farmhouse inns to million-dollar condos, from a basic Stratton Mountain A-frame to the Mountain Modern style of Snowbird, we learn what has been the driving force for change over the decades, how it was accomplished and with what result for people, landscape and business.
       Subsections are devoted to Historic Preservation and Cultural Aspiration (1930s to 1950s), Alpine in America (1950s to 1960s), and Reimagining the Mountain Resort Village (1970s to 1980s). The epilogue is important; Smith casts her socially alert eye on what is happening at American ski resorts in the 21st century. Some may find it disheartening to discover that Nobody’s Home (a film title) in Aspen. That's because many of its homes, averaging $4.9 million in price, are unoccupied for most of the year. Two appendices list three generations of architects, while the second offers more than 100 mini-biographies of relevant resort and landscape architects. The latter are important since, as one remarked, “We have to create postcard settings.”
       The University of Oklahoma Press is to be congratulated on an excellent production. The book contains outstanding photographs and art, and American Ski Resort is a delight. —E. John B. Allen
      
       American Ski Resort: Architecture, Style, Experience by Margaret Supplee Smith; University of Oklahoma Press (2013); hardcover, 300 pages with more than 300 illustrations.
      

Ullr Award

From Heming the Younger to Hemingway
By Jon Vegard Lunde

       From Heming the Younger to Hemingway by Jon Vegard Lunde is a collection of ski literature that runs from Ernest Hemingway's Cross Country Snow and The Snows of Kilimanjaro to writers such as John Updike, John Cheever, Sylvia Plath, Ian Fleming, Romaine Gary and Vladimir Nabokov. But all of the passages were either written in Norwegian, or have been translated into Norwegian by the author. So why should English-speaking readers care? Because the book’s illustrations are a superb collection of period, modern (and in some cases ancient) skiing art—more than 100 striking examples, including a vivid watercolor by Spanish painter and mountain guide Ricardo Montoro Delgado, which was featured on the September-October 2013 cover of Skiing History.
       The subtitle translates as “Skiing literature through a thousand years,” and its long row of renowned authors cries out for an English edition. Nevertheless, the serious collector will not miss the chance to add the book’s excellent illustrations to a library devoted to ski art. Even reviewers who have seen many collections of ski art will not likely have seen most of these works, let alone have such a great group of excellent, wide-ranging reproductions at hand. It is a beautiful book. —Morten Lund
      
       From Heming The Younger to Hemingway by Jon Vegard Lunde; Jevelaget, 416 pages, hard cover, profusely illustrated in color and black-and-white.

2013 HONORABLE MENTIONS
SKADE AWARD

Ski Pioneers of Stowe, Vermont: The First 25 Years by Patricia L.  Haslam

FILM AWARD

Ski America produced by New England Ski Museum

United We Ski produced by T-Bar Films (Richmond, Vermont)

Click here to see all ISHA Award winners since 1993.