This was published 8 years ago
Norquay in Alberta, Canada: King of the mountain
By Jim Darby
Skier Eddie Hunter, 88, says skiing can be an escape for a lifetime.
I'm flanked by a century and a half of skiing wisdom. This could be my best shot at pinning down the meaning of life, well, life in the mountains at least. Not overly ambitious when you meet my companions: Eddie Hunter, 88, is at my left and his fiend Leo Berchtold, 84, is on my right.
We're in the lodge at Mount Norquay, just out of Banff, their home town in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. This is the locals' mountain. Norquay is to Banff what Bondi Beach is to Bondi Junction.
We've skied half a day together, along with a charming local family, and now we're sitting around the table, enjoying some lunch and some laughs, as you do after a morning out on the mountain.
Eddie and Leo ski here just about every day the lifts are open. "I wanna be the first in the car park and the first on the lifts," Leo says, with the accent that came with him from Switzerland all those decades ago. He's clocked up 60 years at Norquay and another 18 on snow before that.
Eddie was born in 1926, the year skiing was born at Mount Norquay and he's skied it for 80 years, writing the mountain's history along the way. There's a run at Norquay called Head Hunter. With flinty Rockies humour, it is written on signs and trail maps as hEaD Hunter run.
He's proud of it, but it's a green (easy) run so it's not his favourite. Both Eddie and Leo prefer the black runs and they still ski them like lads - fast and stylish, two boys in ageing bodies.
Eddie says he almost gave the sport away 10 years ago. He was sick of the battle against his equipment. Then along came a revolution in ski design making them far easier to use; he hasn't looked back.
He uses a pair of twin tips, the kind of skis teenagers favour so they can go backwards as well as forwards. "They're hand-me-downs from my grandson," Eddie explains. The handing down usually goes in the other direction, but there you go. Eddie doesn't fit a mould.
In his working life he was a film and documentary maker and a TV personality in Calgary. After he retired he kept on skiing and even took a ski instructor course. "I must have been in my late 70s. I taught at Lake Louise a bit, and here at Mount Norquay. I found it so gratifying to help people."
He now helps promote these parts. There's a short film with Eddie featuring, where he makes the point that the mountains give "a certain spirit that makes a better person."
The film about Eddie is called The Wise Man. He thinks they might be taking him a bit too seriously. "Never in my life of 88 years has 'wise man' preceded my name or followed it in any way. I tried to get them to change the title, it's such a misnomer," he says with a smirk.
"Skiing is an escape, for your whole life," Eddie says. "Leo and myself are evidence of that. You can't inspire anyone to ski; you can inspire them to enjoy the outdoors and they'll find their own way.
"I've been mentoring a little Filipino boy. I just expose him to this, to the mountain ... his whole life is the pits otherwise, so I hope that I can lighten the day up and give him something like an escape."
So there it is. Eight or 88, the mountains offer you the wings to make good your escape.
The writer was a guest of Travel Alberta.
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