Recalling the beginnings of a ski hill for Big Mountain
This column is created by the Flathead Valley Ski Education Foundation and the Ski Heritage Center Museum of Skiing. Enjoy these fascinating stories about the rich and colorful history of skiing in the Flathead Valley and get ready for Ski Heritage Days on March 16 – 18.
That was then
Ed Schenck told the story of the founding of a ski hill on Big Mountain to Edmund Christopherson for The Saturday Evening Post on March 4, 1950.
By the eagerness of his question, and others, I realized they wanted a ski area, and they wanted it badly, and they wanted it right now. Mainly, I gathered, they wanted to know how they could make a St. Moritz out of Whitefish. In keeping with this trend of thought, I told them how we could build a big resort setup on the lake, with a four-mile-long aerial tram to take the skiers up to the mountain. Everyone liked that idea fine, but right away they wanted to know how much a project like that would cost. I told them that $3 million ought to do it.
From there on, the talk became a lot more realistic. We finally decided on a ski development that would cost an initial $70,000. George and I agreed to invest our $20,000, and to develop the project ourselves if the chamber could raise the rest. They went out and got pledges for $40,000 worth of stocks. But pledges and contracts are two different things, we later discovered.
By this time the town was really steamed up about skiing. The atmosphere was almost like that when a religious revival is in town, with meetings every night, and folks talking about only one thing. For the next year, at least, there were meetings at least three times a week, plus Sundays, and George and I had to stay awake during all of them.
What did we talk about at all these meetings? An exceptional elephant couldn’t remember half of it. We hashed over everything from incorporation to just how we’d get skiers. We had lots of problems, and we just had to stay with ‘em until everyone was satisfied, especially since they hadn’t actually put up the money yet.
For example, we must have spent 15 meetings on the problem of what we’d name the corporation and the mountain. The local skiers used the name “Hell Roaring,” and at one meeting a motion was presented to name our outfit the Hell Roaring Ski Corporation. Next morning three important businessmen and potential investors told me that if that was what we were going to call the organization, they’d have no part of it. The Forest Service said there were already seven Hell Roaring Creeks in the region. Others thought it suggested that skiing was dangerous and would scare off business. So we took the quiet, noncontroversial name of Winter Sports, Inc., and called the hill we’d chosen The Big Mountain.
Winter Sports, Inc., was finally incorporated by the beginning of the summer of 1947. The chamber was selling stock, and everything seemed to be under control. Blithely we announced that we’d open that Dec. 19.
George is quieter and more reassuring than I am, so he was elected president of the corporation: Not wanting me to feel left out, they gave me the title of General Manager. These may sound like executive jobs, positions of authority, trust and leisure, but during the next two years we mostly worked as ditchdiggers, brush cutters, tractor drivers, riggers, and road builders, as well as designers, engineers, promoters and after-dinner speakers. Filling these jobs, we worked what seemed like an average of 20 hours a day. Although George got home to sleep on the nights when we stopped working, his daughter Jan saw him so seldom that she would go up to any man she saw in the street, shouting, “Daddy!” Phyl, his wife, felt so neglected that at least twice he found her packed up and ready to leave.
As for making a fortune, it’s been lucky that a doctor, a butcher and a couple of grocers in town were enough taken by the ski bug to carry us on the cuff.
The story continues in a future column.
This is Now
Make plans to enjoy Hellroaring Ski Heritage Days on March 17 – 18!
On Friday, March 17 at 6 p.m. at the O’Shaughnessy Center is the Ski Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Reception featuring Canadian Olympic Medalist “Jungle” Jim Hunter, the original “Crazy Canuck.” Tickets are $35 on sale March 1 at Glacier Bank in downtown Whitefish and Kalispell, or online at fvsef.org.
On Saturday, March 18 events take place all day at Whitefish Mountain Resort. There will be cash prizes for all events. The day includes, a Ski-a-Thon, Retro-Race, Team Uphill/Downhill Classic, Best Vintage Outfit Contest and Toni Matt Promenade.
For information, visit fvesf.org or contact Tim Hinderman at tim.hinderman@fvsef.org or 885-2730.