Fort William Ski Club
The Fort William Ski Club was a ski club in Fort William, Ontario, now part of Thunder Bay. It was formed at Hawke's Farm in 1929; Fort William skiers had earlier used King George's Park and the prison farm.[1]
When Hawke's Farm was sold in 1932, the club moved to Mount McKay on a long-term lease of Fort William First Nation land, where it built a 165 m jump and a tow for the 1939 Canadian championships and hosted the 1949 Dominion Ski Championships.[1][2] In 1971 it sold the operation to the Fort William band, which ran it as the Mount McKay Ski Area.[3]
The King George's Park site, on the north bank of the Kaministiquia River, was in use by 1912 and held its first competition in 1913, but its south-facing slope could not hold snow. Two jumps were then built at the prison farm with the superintendent's help; one report says a prisoner who had been an expert skier helped design them.[1] For the 1939 Canadian championships competitors came from across Canada, the United States and Norway, and the Toronto Star Weekly called Fort William "the future St. Moritz of Canada".[1] The 1964 Olympic ski jumper Frank Gartrell learned to ski at the club's ski school in the early 1950s.[4][5]
See also
Thunder Bay Museum material (October 2026)
- 1939: The club hosted the Dominion ski championships on Mount McKay from 24 to 26 February. There were 124 entries, including club jumper Erling Hansen and Elizabeth "Tib" Fuller and Betty Youngs, "Fort William's two ranking skiers".[6] Knute Hansen's reported 155-foot leap off the Mount McKay jump that year was a hill and Ontario record.[7]
- 1963: The club's jump was 60 metres, against the 90-metre hill planned at Little Norway.[8]
- 1964: The club was almost certain to buy snowmaking machinery (John Clifford Company of Ottawa, about $30,000), and planned a floodlit slalom and a run of about two miles.[9]
See History of skiing in Thunder Bay: Thunder Bay Museum material and Big Thunder.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Imrie, Diane. "High flying". Bayview Magazine, November 2017.
- ↑ Imrie, Diane. "Skiing is in fabric of area's city". The Chronicle-Journal, 26 January 2021.
- ↑ "Mount McKay". Skier 72, The Lost Resorts.
- ↑ "Frank Gartrell" (athlete profile, inducted 26 September 1992). Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.
- ↑ "Frank Gartrell". Olympedia.
- ↑ "Port Arthur Girls Entered In Ski Events". Port Arthur News-Chronicle, 23 February 1939, p. 1 (continued p. 12); clipping from the Thunder Bay Museum archives, supplied by Emma Hurley Warren (archival assistant) in an email to Michael Currie, 26 October 2026 (personal communication). Scan.
- ↑ Imrie, Diane (Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame). Article in Lakehead Living, 1987, as summarised by Emma Hurley Warren, Thunder Bay Museum, email to Michael Currie, 26 October 2026 (personal communication). The 1987 article itself has not been seen.
- ↑ Sports column ("A new ski resort is in the making..."). Port Arthur News-Chronicle, 29 August 1963; clipping from the Thunder Bay Museum archives, supplied by Emma Hurley Warren (archival assistant) in an email to Michael Currie, 26 October 2026 (personal communication). Scan.
- ↑ Patola, Roger. "Big Plans Ahead For Skiing Areas". Port Arthur News-Chronicle, 28 April 1964; clipping from the Thunder Bay Museum archives, supplied by Emma Hurley Warren (archival assistant) in an email to Michael Currie, 26 October 2026 (personal communication). Scan.
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