WF - Winter Fun

For most people, skiing involves mechanical help to get upslope. After all, the fun part is coming down, not climbing up. But when the only way to get to the top is on your own two feet, is the idea less appealing? For the early Vancouverites who hit the slopes, the answer was no.

Even before gondola cars, chairlifts or access roads, winter in the North Shore mountains was fun, even if people had to hike to get there.

With a winter wonderland on Grouse, Seymour or Cypress mountains, it is no wonder that the settlers of the Vancouver area made their way to the slopes for some fun. Without easy access to the slopes, many skiers built cabins. After all, hiking up each time they wanted to ski was no easy feat. A cabin meant they could enjoy the slopes for longer before the hike back down to the city.

The cabins helped forge a tightknit ski community who ate, partied and skied together. The skiers helped each other to build cabins when someone new came along. This life was so appealing that at one point there were over three hundred cabins on Mount Seymour alone.

As time passed, it eventually became easier to get to the resorts thanks to roads and the Grouse Mountain gondola. Once there, chairlifts and tows made it easier to reach the tops of the peaks. In 1948 though, there was a helicopter that flew skiers to the Grouse Mountain Chalet, as is seen in the newspaper clipping in this selection of archives. James Adam Craig’s reminiscences of his time skiing at Grouse Mountain and Hollyburn also give a great insight into the lives of skiers in the 1930s and 1940s.

As access improved, skiing became a hobby for even more people. From clubs and races to lessons for kids and advice on equipment, all found in the archives, there were many similarities to modern ski life.

• Skiing

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