YOUR RUN from Fall 2009 issue
WHAT EVER
HAPPENED TO ... ?
It's taken us a while to find enough space to
print the cascade of letters that flowed into
Ski Canada's mailbox after Marty McLennan
wrote about lost ski areas ("Closed Runs") in
the Winter 2008 issue. No doubt there are still
some grown-over runs and rusty equipment bits
of ski areas that have still been missed but the
response from readers clearly proves a nostalgic
passion is alive and well.
--Ed.
* Having grown up in Montreal, and spending
many days at our family cottage near the now-defunct
Petit Train du Nord Ste-Marguerite
station train, I skied at most if not all of the
"RIP" Quebec hills you mentioned.
In the '70s, my dad bought a "Ski Ami" book that was loaded with coupons. To take
maximum advantage of the book's value, we
went almost everywhere at least once. Some
were ho-hum, such as Mont Castor, despite
that hill's impressive photo in our faithful book
of someone getting some decent air off a jump.
Others were rare finds such as one that didn't
appear in your story, Mont Jasper, somewhere
near St-Donat.
Another hill not on your list was Mont
Plante. The remnants of a T-bar base and one
tower can be seen through the overgrowth,
off the southbound side of the Laurentian
autoroute near the Val-David area. A gem
to add is Auberge Yvan Coutu, located on
both sides of Hwy 370 toward Ste-Marguerite.
Though a small hill, with its large old auberge,
Yvan Coutu had a very European feel.
Lastly, kudos for remembering the Université
de Montréal Ski Hill! I often came home from
Mont Royal High School, put my faux leather ski
boots on, walked to the bus stop at the end of
our street with skis and poles over my shoulder,
and took the five- to 10-minute ride right to
the hill, catching a few hours of skiing
before a late supper. Hard to believe such
an attraction existed right in the middle of
a major city.
I'm not sure if anyone at Ski Canada recognizes the family name. My late sister,
Maxine, wrote for your magazine in the
early '80s before she was killed in 1986 in a
plane crash in Guatemala.
LLOYD SEVACK, Montreal
Managing editor Anne was on staff when Maxine
wrote many wonderful stories for Ski Canada.
She remembers vividly the sad day in the office
when they realized Maxine was on that plane.
—Ed.
* There was a ski hill between Mont Sutton
and Owl's Head in Quebec's Eastern Townships
named Mont Echo that closed in the late ’70s.
KEVIN MARLER, Ottawa
* I have worked and skied in most provinces
across this country. I remember the following
ski centres to add to your RIP list:
Ontario: Near Sudbury, my hometown:
Capreol Ski Hill; Azilda Ski, built by a Catholic
Youth Club led by a skiing priest; Nordic Ski
Hill, closed because the City of Sudbury taxed
it to death, then opened its own ski hill,
ADANAC; Flo-Mount was built on a mountain
with a MNR fire observation tower and had one
of the highest verticals in Northern Ontario;
and Levack Ski Hill. Near North Bay: Nipissing
Ridge, where former Ontario Premier Mike
Harris was an instructor; and Temagami Ski
Hill, built by employees of Sherman Mine for
the community. North of Hunstville: Kearney
Ski Hill, which lasted about two seasons.
Alberta: Lyon Mountain, on the way to
Canmore (you can still see the runs).
Quebec: I recall colleagues telling me there
used to be a rope tow and a ski club at Mont
Royal, Montreal.
Newfoundland: In my travels to The Rock,
I recall people mentioning ski hills in Gander
(built by the military) and in St. John’s.
ANDRE LABINE, Fernie, B.C.
Thanks for all the research! The Mont Royal ski
area is on the list as Beaver Lake Ski Tow.
—Marty McLennan
* Your article took me
back a few years! At
age 4 in 1964, I started
skiing at Don Valley Ski
Club. We soon became
season's pass holders
at a ski hill that didn't
appear on your list -
Rouge Valley, Scarborough. In the winter
months, my brother and I skied there every
day after school, with Mom and Dad joining
us on the weekends. I was quite young, but
do remember that we had to walk over the
river to get to the hill from the restaurant/
clubhouse. They had two short rope tows
on the beginner hill, and a T-bar on the big
hill, with a super-high-speed rope tow that
they
1968 Rouge Valley Ski
Team with coach, and
future Ski Canada
tester, Mike Weiss,
(tall guy, far right)
would open when the T-bar was really
busy. It was a real rush to jet up the hill after
finally getting a grip on the rope just before
it burned through the last layer of leather on
your mitts.
My brother and I also spent some time
on the hills at Summit. Although they had
a couple of rope tows, the racers had to
sidestep the hill since there were no grooming
machines. Sometimes for a change, the family
would go to The Honey Pot. What a dump! - I
mean, landfill site. The sign was still there
well into the '90s. During Christmas holidays
we stayed at various ski hills around southern
Ontario, among them Limber Lost. During my
high school days in the mid- to late-'70s, our
racing team trained at King Valley; the name
changed to Isabella Gardens the year before
they buried that place. And I still love looking
up at Pigeon Mountain on my way back to
Calgary after a great day of skiing at The Lake.
NICK SOLTY, Aurora, Ontario
* You forgot Bellevue at Morin Heights,
Quebec, behind the Commons Hotel. After
skiing the "big hills" on Saturdays, we took our
sons to Bellevue on Sundays and had fun.
PETER MOORE, Haliburton, Ontario
* It's with a mixture of both sadness and
fond memories that I read your article on
closed Canadian ski areas. I’ve had the
incredible opportunity to have lived and
travelled throughout Ontario and skied many
of those now-defunct ski hills. I spent much of
my youth skiing and racing on Mt. Antoine in
Mattawa, the largest and yet least-known "ski
mountain" in the province. No other ski site
in Ontario can brag of having breathtaking
views of the Laurentian Mountains and the
Ottawa River, and having the longest ski run
in the province, clocking in at 1.8 miles total
length-yes, I said miles.
CLARK WRIGHT, Barrie, Ontario
* La Marquise used to face Mont St-Sauveur
and was one of the prime hills right in downtown
St-Sauveur in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. It
produced a lot of great skiers and racers.
GREG FRECHETTE, Montreal
* After reading your article, I recalled helping
out for several weekends in my hometown of
Powell River, transporting plywood and other
building supplies to an old neglected ski lodge
when I was a teenager. This would have been
around 1986-87. The only problem was, I
couldn’t remember the name of the ski area.
In a stroke of irony I looked at page 73 and
saw an ad for a pair of Jewel Diadem skis by
Salomon. Immediately, I remembered the name:
Mount Diadem!
QUINN JACQUES, Cochrane, Alberta
* I noted with interest the number of closed
ski areas, particularly those in Quebec where I
grew up and where our children started skiing.
Other Quebec ski areas long since shut down
include Chalet Cochand, near Ste-Marguerite
(for a while known as Centre Yvan Coutu and the Ste-Marguerite Ski Club), and La
Marquise, right in the town of St-Sauveur. Hill
70, part of Uphill Ltd, Sun Valley, near Ste.
Adele, and Mont Avila, now part of Mont St-
Sauveur, were all places we took our then-four-year-old son, [and now Ski Canada contributor]
Chris, to ski. Our daughter, Jennifer, initially
took lessons on the hills at Beaconsfield Golf
Club in Pointe Claire before we moved to
Markham and joined the Oshawa Ski Club.
DAVE AND LYNDA LENNON, Markham, Ontario
* You missed a classic ski hill that my father,
Art Schreiner, started in the late '60s to teach
and promote the great sport of skiing. It was
called Fonthill Ski Centre, a.k.a. Lookout
Point. He reached an agreement to lease
land from a golf course called Lookout Point
Golf Course for the winter, and the classic
part of all this was, we had no snowmaking
and only needed four to six inches of snow
to ski because the grass was cut so short.
Family, friends and instructors would spend
two weekends in the fall erecting all the
lifts - three rope tows and one Poma - and
in the spring we would take them down and
store them in the bush. I remember one of
my first jobs as a kid was to install Gertch
Plate bindings on 200 pairs of rental skis “by
hand.” This is what got me started in the ski
business. Our family closed the hill and sold
our ski shop in St. Catharines after our father
passed away. The store is still prospering;
Andy Huber, my dad’s employee, bought the
shop from the family in '82.
ARLEN SCHREINER,
Horseshoe Valley, Ontario
* I noticed that you had Fort St. James ski
club as an area that has been closed. Well,
you have been misinformed. Fort St. James is
just that, a ski club and the area is actually
called Murray Ridge.
It's alive and kicking and has never been
shut down. In fact, two years ago it was the
first hill in B.C. to open and was its highest
grossing year ever. It would be cool if you
guys would cover some tiny hills like these
diamonds in the rough even though I’m sure
it probably doesn’t attract too many people
because of the two-km T-bar. But it's still my
favourite hill.
BRAD VAN KOUGHNETT, Fort St. James, B.C.
* You omitted a facility that has been
indelibly etched on my mind, Green
Mountain, southeast of Nanaimo on
Vancouver Island. On April 24, 1966, I had
the misfortune to ski at right angles into
an unmarked gully where it had melted
underneath a tree, smashing both ankles,
one of which reminds me of the incident
on a daily basis. Green Mountain at that
time was faced with the recent opening
of Whistler, and the owners of the facility
were considering upgrades and looking for
financing. I knew one of the directors and as
a mortgage broker was invited to look at the
development with another broker. It didn't
appear to be a viable candidate for further
investment and closed shortly after. Nowadays
such an accident would result in a lawsuit,
but one of the owners was a friend who drove
me to the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.
Memories, memories!
EVAN POTTER, Edmonton
* While reading your list of long-gone ski
areas, there was one in southwestern Ontario
that you missed. In the 1960s and '70s we
would load up the car in Sarnia and head 30
minutes north to Pinery Provincial Park and
the wonderful little 90-foot, more or less, ski
hill complete with snowmaking and a single
Poma lift. Many enjoyable Sunday afternoons
were spent there with family and friends, and
always hot chocolate in the hut after.
HANK DE JONG, Sarnia, Ontario
* The Drumheller Valley Ski Club developed a
ski hill in a valley 10 miles west of Drumheller
near grain elevators on a siding called
Dunphy. This area was called Twin Peaks. We
had an 1,100-foot run on a vertical of 175
feet. An old school was moved to the site,
which became the lodge. We used two rope
tows, one 900 feet and the shorter was 250
feet. Lights were installed for nightskiing,
we had ski rentals available and a concession
manned by volunteers mostly. This hill
operated from 1966 until 1974, when we
lost access to the hill, which was on private
land. In 1993, the Drumheller Valley Ski Club
opened a new ski hill with a quad chair and
snowmaking.
DON HERMAN, Drumheller, Alberta
