Memories of Booty Griffiths

[Al Fisher] Booty brought class to the ski hill. The ski industry here – clothing, good skis, and so – he was also a competitor. Booty was a – he competed in – in the four events slalom, downhill, jumping, and cross-country. His hometown was Revelstoke, so he had a great background in the sport, and he worked on the fish boats down in Vancouver and every fall he would buy his stock of – of ski equipment and come up here and set shop up as soon as the snow came. And then he’d disappear again in the spring and down to the the fishing grounds. He did that for a number of years before he settled down here on a regular basis, but we would all buy our gear down there and and you’d have to have jumping skis. And it would only be one pair of skis for both slalom and downhill and cross-country skis. And I still owed Booty money by the time I graduated from university, and I eventually paid him off after the first job I got.

[Richie Mann] I worked – I worked for Booty one winter. He had a satellite ski shop out at the, the ski lodge at the bottom of the ski lodge. And so I worked in there and he never had any prices on any of his goods. So you could, depending on who you were selling to, you would kind of judge how much you could sell this article for. And so – so somebody’d come in for a pair of shoe laces, you’d soak them like crazy if they looked rich and…

[Roly Worsfold] Then you get a deal.

[Richie Mann] Oh yeah! And then, and then some kid, some kid come in and he’s broke something and he hadn’t got any money. You know, it was, this was Booty’s way, you know, and he’d go, “Oh, give it to him. Give it to him.”

[Roly Worsfold] Like Robin Hood with skis.

[Richie Mann] Oh yeah, yeah, no. He he was. We had a lot of fun at that shop all winter, I’ll tell yeah, and ah –

[Ruth Grubisic]  He, first of all, had a shop right under – like the – where the Allen Hotel was, and there there was a cleaners there and then –

[Richie Mann] Right beside the bus depot.

[Ruth Grubisic] No, not, no –

[Richie Mann] That was his first one.

[Ruth Grubisic] Not, no. On the other side. By the Allen Hotel and the cleaners. And the cleaners had a tailor. And so people could go into Booty’s shop and he just rented a space with skis in. And – but – he would measure them up and the tailor would make the ski pants. And so my very first really professional ski pants came from the tailor in the next – from the cleaner’s shop.