Remembering the Rope Tow

This article, by Jeff Swystun, originally appeared in the February, 2021 issue of The Tremblant Express.

Before magic carpets gently moved tottering children up bunny slopes or high-speed 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 pully wheels, and a barely running four-cylinder 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 of 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 prospering him 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 Quebec and New Hampshire to Minnesota. His empire began in the Laurentians with three tows on Ste. 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 Ste-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 into the surrounding woods. Johannsen 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 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 amazing 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.