Cultivating Talented Young RMSC Skiers Video

Transcript:

[Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre logo on a white screen]

Libby Martin: There has been a ski school at Red Mountain going back to when the – even before the lift was put in in 1947. The club kind of nurtured a love of skiing in many people in the community.

Ruth Grubisic: They announced that they didn’t have a fifth skier. They only had four people and I thought my girlfriend Marie Gresley-Jones was a much better skier than I was and so I said ‘you have to go volunteer to be the other member.’ We got to the library where Mr. Roberts was in charge of the ski meet and so he said ‘well I can only take one but one can be a spare.’ Marie said “I’ll be the spare!” and so I had got on the ski team and then that put me in the racing program right after that.

Ginger Baines: My father and four other gentlemen built Yodel Inn up in the mountains. We used to spend all our holidays up there. Christmas, Easter, summer holidays were always spent up at Yodel Inn and we set a practice slope in the wintertime and behind the cabin and we practised and practised, all the time and he was constantly criticizing and telling us to better ourselves and it was just a wonderful way of life. And then when I watch others racing down the hill I try to beat them. The thrill of – the thrill of being first. There isn’t a better feeling. I loved even the practices, I mean. As you know after 11 you can ski Red Mountain, the kids couldn’t but my parents again spoiled me and I always had an adult’s season pass rather than a child’s season pass so I could race and ski all day which I did and never missed a Wednesday night or a Friday night or a weekend.

Ruth Grubisic: Well I think that the ski hill in Rossland opened up the world to all of us because we were all just homebodies and our parents were not well off so we didn’t get to travel but when we got into skiing, we got invited to other ski hills and got to go down the road in the car and be billeted at different people’s houses, so it opened our eyes. Ches was the one that invited – when he had the ski team he said ‘the only way you’re going to get better is to have competition’ and so apparently he’s the one that went to UBC and asked the host the Intercollegiate’s ski meet for the British Columbians, and so they did.

Ginger Baines: [Referring to the Inter-High Ski Meets] Oh that was…That was something you looked forward to all year long. All the different teams that would come.” 

Ruth Grubisic: [Referring to the InteCollegiate Ski Meets] It was always a really big deal because the skiers all came early and they got billeted out in the town.

Ginger Baines:  [Referring to the Inter-High Ski Meets] A lot of those girls I still write to. We’re still friends and some of them –  we met up in Europe as well.

Ruth Grubisic: [Referring to the InteCollegiate Ski Meets] And they practised on Red Mountain; ski racing and stuff…till the big race on New Year’s.

Ginger Baines: [Referring to the Inter-High Ski Meets] It was very well run. There was so many volunteers. The banquet at the high school was phenomenal.

Ruth Grubisic: [Referring to the InteCollegiate Ski Meets] All of Rossland kids got to go in the race.

Ginger Baines: [Referring to the Inter-High Ski Meets] And it was just something I strived from grade seven and finally grade 11 and grade 12 I finally won the top prize and I just…For me that was what I worked my whole life for. [laughs] It was a wonderful feeling.

Ruth: [Referring to the InteCollegiate Ski Meets] And so they got in the eye of all the coaches from all the universities so then the better skiers got offers to go to university.”

Interviewer [off camera]: And got scholarships.

Ruth Grubsic: And got scholarships. And so they started to get secondary educations where they could have never afforded to leave town before. So yeah.

Ginger Baines: Rossland was very well known and if you could race –  they always said if you could ski in Rossland, you could ski anywhere in the world and that’s very true. It was a good start.

Nancy Greene Raine: You dream a little bit. It’s good for kids to have big dreams. You don’t always get them, they don’t always turn out, but sometimes they do.

[Text which reads, “Supported by” followed with a blue logo for the Trail and District Arts Council]