‘The heart of Norquay today is strong:’ Banff’s first ski resort celebrates 100 years

Skiers at Mount Norquay in the winter of 1969. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MOUNT NORQUAY)

Winding up Mount Norquay Scenic Drive, switchbacks and all, a rickety Brewster bus carries Banff’s Eddie Hunter, pine skis at his side and leather boots snug to his feet, up to the slopes of Norquay.

While questionable at times, sure enough, the old “streetcar” bus topped the hill and an eight-year-old Eddie, along with his buddy Don Hayes, were in for an “all day trip” – over an hour of trekking up to the bowl to earn their turns back down.

“The bus I remember was a huge thing, you’d think it would never make it to Norquay,” said the Banff ski legend with a laugh.

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It’s the 1930s in Banff and Mount Norquay is still in its early days after the first runs were cut in 1926 by skier Gus Johnson, marking the birth of the first ski hill in the Canadian Rockies.

“My association with Norquay has always been good,” says Eddie, 99, who was born in 1926, the same year the ski resort started.

At 100 years old, time takes its toll and some memories have now faded like ski tracks under a fresh dusting of snow, but sometimes it’s the feelings that time can’t touch and Norquay holds an abundance of them for Eddie and all who’ve crossed paths with the century-old Mighty Quay.

“Whenever I think of home, I think of Norquay,” says Eddie’s daughter Kendall Hunter, who first learned to ski on the hill at the age of one. “For dad to be the same age as the hill, literally, it really puts it into perspective, the history.”

From the spectacle of ski jumping to racing champions barrelling down the slopes, many eras have come and gone since skiers first engraved tracks on the hill above Banff and in the words of Eddie, “Norquay has seen it all.”

“This 100 years is really at a good time where there’s still people in the community, like dad, that have those memories,” said Kendall.

Many markers of the past still stand as reminders of the hill’s roots, like the 1959 ski jumping judging towers built as part of Banff’s 1964 Winter Olympic bid and the 86-year-old North American Lodge – replacing the original lodge, the Norquay Ski Camp, that burned down in 1938.

“[The judging towers] haven’t been used and they’re kind of just sitting there boarded up and our plan in the future is to reuse them actually, … moving them to a new location that people will be able to actually interact with them,” says Andre Quenneville, Norquay’s general manager.

“Ski jumping became kind of the thrill seeker sport and was very popular early on in the ski world,” he said.

Drawing crowds, including Eddie and his dad, ski jumping took off at Norquay in the 30s with the first jump built in 1935.

Eddie remembers the jumps as a sort of proving ground.

“We were sitting in the lodge being the great skiers that we were, and finally somebody said, ‘has anybody here gotten over the jump?’ We all looked at one another, no, nobody had, so I said, ‘let’s go up’ and if you had an idea then you knew pretty well you had a chance to back your talk up,” he recalled.

“We went up and it was a disaster.”

Eddie remembers his friend, Ross Maxwell, taking flight.

“He went over the jump, and he says, ‘I’m up,’ and then I heard, ‘I’m down,’” Eddie said with a laugh, describing Maxwell’s launch off the jump and the way he bobbed up and down the slope.

A ski jumper at Mount Norquay in 1942 or earlier. BYRON HARMON PHOTO

As Quenneville describes it, eventually skiers were out-jumping the jumps themselves and the sport slowly waned in popularity over the years.

Meanwhile, downhill racing came onto the scene at Norquay, with the first slalom courses being set in 1929, and as years passed many national champions would be born from its steep slopes.

“Back in the day, they raced a downhill from the top of Norquay, they went all the way down to the Juniper Hotel down the Widowmaker ski run and that would’ve been a pretty scary course,” Quenneville said.

“Danger was just part of the game.”

With the Dominion Ski championships running in 1937, 1940 and 1948, many local and international races, including the longest-running annual ski race in Canada’s history – the Bruno Engler Memorial Race – would unfold on the hill.

In his book The Spirit of Norquay, published in 2000, Eddie recalls how the war, from 1939-45, changed things at Norquay. International races tapered off and it was mostly high school meets that took their place.

Eddie raced in his fair share, winning some too. Speeding down the North American run in a race during his teens, one wrong move and Eddie found himself face-to-face with a tree.

“I don’t know how I ended up in the tree, but I made it. It didn’t scare me … it just certainly cut into my time, made my run a lot longer,” Eddie said casually, not quite recalling how he actually made it out of the tree.

Time kept on turning and with a push from Norquay’s first owner, George Encil, to modernize the hill, the North American Chairlift would come on the scene, changing the game for skiers.

“The reason it was called the North American Chair at the time, it was the steepest, longest ski terrain in North America,” said Quenneville.

Before that, it was the rope tow, introduced in 1941, that took skiers (if you could manage to keep your gloves on) to the top.

“It was a great humour to ski at Norquay,” Eddie said, recalling that if you didn’t hold on tight enough, the tow would take your gloves up but leave you behind.

For the price of 25 cents, a skier was set for four rides.

“It was money we didn’t have,” Eddie added with a laugh.

Coined by locals as the Big Chair, overlooking Mount Rundle and the town of Banff, the lift provided access to some of the toughest terrain at the time and took skiers all the way up to the Cliffhouse Bistro, including Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe in 1953.

“If you were a human being at all and you rode the chair, if you weren’t impressed with the ride up, there was something else wrong with you,” said Eddie with a chuckle.

Moving through the hands of several owners over the years, Norquay persevered through the peaks and valleys of time, including a moment where the hill nearly closed its doors for good.

“At one point in the 90s it was owned by Brewster Transportation and they also owned the Sulphur Mountain Gondola and at that time they expanded the ski area and built the Mystic Ridge expansion and invested a significant amount of money in order to do that, and following the expansion, the skier visits that they expected to get weren’t there,” said Quenneville, noting the hill eventually went bankrupt in ‘95 before new owners, Kika Grandi and Peter White, took over.

“It was almost sold for parts, and it would’ve disappeared,” added Kendall. “It would be a shame if it weren’t there because people know they can go up even after school sometimes with night skiing and you always know you are gonna see somebody up there.”

“That’s their tagline right now I think, ‘Banff’s backyard’, and it’s just so true.”

‘Community spirit’ heart of Norquay

For Kendall, Norquay comes back to the people.

“That community spirit, I think that’s the core of it and really what has kept it going,” she said.

As Eddie describes it in The Spirit of Norquay, the hill has always been a “community hall”, a gathering place for Banff locals and Calgary skiers who would ride the train west to the mountain town.

“It’s very grounding to come back here and to always have Norquay as that place to go, and even if I’m not skiing a lot these days, it’s like the people of my past are all associated with Norquay too. It’s a real grounding place,” Kendall said, remembering that her family spent every Christmas at the hill – no matter the temperature.

“There always seems to be a new story that someone has for me about how Norquay touched them or their family or how it’s influenced their lives in skiing and that’s been phenomenal,” added Quenneville.

A vision for the future

While cherishing the past, Norquay has their sights set on the next century and a vision that will upgrade infrastructure and keep the mountain accessible and sustainable going forward.

With the new plans comes the replacement of the 60-year-year-old North American Chairlift in 2027, says Quenneville.

“Upgrades are necessary, we cannot just stay stagnant. We cannot just rely on what we have. It’s important to reinvest in our infrastructure,” he said.

But it’s bittersweet for the Norquay team and many who have spent years riding the Big Chair.

“The Big Chair is an institution for those who know it well and those who skied it or those children who’ve learned to ski on it. It’s kind of a rite of passage. Once you make it up to the Big Chair, it’s because you know that you can ski a double black diamond run,” said Quenneville.

“As the saying goes, if you can ski Norquay, you could ski anything.”

In 1961, Norquay’s original single chairlift was replaced by a double seater. Later, in 1966, the existing chairlift was installed, Quenneville says, noting that ever since it’s been maintained and upgraded but never fully replaced.

“We’re sad that it’s gonna be replaced for sure, however, … you can’t keep getting parts forever. We’ve done everything we can to keep this lift alive but at some point, all good things come to an end and it’s time to replace it.”

Day of Nostalgia

A big birthday calls for a big party and to celebrate the century-old hill, Norquay is hosting the Day of Nostalgia on Saturday (March 28), bringing together young and old whose stories are intertwined with the mountain.

“It’s going to start off with some guided ski tours with some local legends who will … be able to take people out and talk about some historical stories,” said Quenneville.

A fireside chat with current owners Adam and Jan Waterous, a discussion of the 100-year vision, screening of the Mighty Quay film, the 58th Bruno Engler Memorial Race and a display of old ski relics, are all part of the day’s celebrations, he added.

“We anticipate there’ll be lots of people with plenty of new stories that we haven’t heard that we’ll get to hear,” Quenneville said.

Today, sitting in the lodge, you might have to shell out a little more than a dime for a steaming cup of chocolate, but the thrill of powder days on the North American run, riding the Big Chair next to friends and passing down a love for skiing from one generation to the next are experiences that have endured through the ages.

“The heart of Norquay today is strong. We’ve come a long way,” said Quenneville.

“Norquay remains, I would go as far as to say, the heart of Banff when it comes to that mountain experience.