Remembering the rope tow

©Courtoisie

By Jeff Swystun

Before magic carpets moved tottering children gently up bunny slopes, or highspeed quads whisked thrill-seekers to towering summits, there was the humble rope tow. Until it was introduced, skiers hiked up, barely managing four runs a day.

That changed in 1931. On a small slope in Shawbridge in the Laurentians, ski jumper Alex Foster of Montreal saw an opportunity to really move people. He spliced together 730 metres of rope and arranged surplus telephone poles, old pulley wheels, and a barely-running fourcylinder Dodge engine fixed on cement blocks.

Imagine the first time the engine powered up. Those brave enough to try it would have ended up in tangled heaps. Anyone who has ridden a rope tow knows that if you grab on tightly, you can be jerked from your boots. Skiers learn to slowly grip the rope, placing one arm in front while the other is placed behind the back as a brace.

Hundreds of thousands of Canadian kids learned to ski thanks to rope tows, riding up between the instructor’s or parent’s legs. I remember doing so at Falcon Lake Ski Resort in Manitoba. It was a proud moment making it up the hill on my own, let alone skiing down. Later, I worked at Springhill Ski Park outside Winnipeg and we made lots of money selling customers glove protectors for the area’s two rope tows.

Foster’s invention was an immediate hit and quickly spread to North American resorts. There is no record of a patent allowing him to prosper over the long term. I can tell you that he charged a nickel a ride, or a quarter for a day ticket.

Fred Pabst, of beer fortune fame, once owned a chain of rope-tow areas, reaching from Québec and New Hampshire to Minnesota. His empire began in the Laurentians with three tows on Saint-Sauveur’s hills 69, 70, and 71, each named after World War 1 battlegrounds where Canadians fought. Pabst abandoned the business due to low returns.

The rope tow, in combination with ski schools and ski trains, brought tourism to the Laurentians. This led to North America’s first concentration of inns designed for skiers. The earliest, founded in 1914, was Chalet Cochand at Sainte-Marguerite. At Shawbridge, next to Foster’s invention, was the Laurentian Lodge Club.

One of the club’s owners, “Jackrabbit” Johannsen, led cross-country ski tours through the surrounding woods. It was Johannsen who cut the Maple Leaf Trail through the Laurentians, connecting inn to inn. Lifts became more sophisticated with the T-bar and Poma lifts.

The first chairlift was called the banana hook. Jim Curran had previously invented a conveyor belt system to move bananas from plantation to rail cars without bruising the bananas. He applied the idea to skiers’ sensitive bottoms. Mont-Tremblant opened in 1939 with Canada’s first single chair lift. Mount Norquay still operates a double chair, installed in 1948, running to the famous Cliffhouse Bistro.

After the chairlifts came warmer, more comfortable gondolas. In 2008 at Whistler Blackcomb, the Peak-to-Peak gondola opened, spanning 4.4 km between the two mountains. Each gondola holds 28 people, moving 4,100 skiers per hour. At Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain, the Red Skyride gondola has a capacity of 101 passengers.

Alex Foster’s 730 metres of rope created a rich history and made an huge contribution to the ski industry. For me, the rope tow is nostalgic, providing a sense of freedom similar to getting your first bicycle or car. It was an amazing feeling to make it up the hill on your own.

 

More from this author by clicking on his picture below.

Jeff Swystun

 

Jeff Swystun46 Posts

Conférencier prolifique et écrivain, Jeff a donné plus de 115 conférences dans 25 pays. L'expertise de Jeff en matière de stratégie d'entreprise, de stratégie de marque et de marketing a mené à l'ouverture de Swystun Communications en 2012. / A prolific speaker and writer, Jeff has appeared at over 115 conferences in over 25 countries. Jeff’s expertise in business strategy, branding and marketing led to the opening of Swystun Communications in 2012. SC is a boutique agency focused on the intersection of business and brand strategy.

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