Jasper ski enthusiasts yearning for nostalgia were able to get their fix last week when longtime mountain guide Peter Amann spoke to a small group on the history of Marmot Basin’s avalanche control.

Last Wednesday (Feb 17), following a snow safety talk by University of Calgary snow expert Cameron Ross, Amann told stories, shared photos of personalities of Marmot Basin’s past. These included Tony Klettl, Hans Schwarz and Willie Pfisterer, who were all present and who all helped bring Marmot Basin out of the dark ages in terms of ski patrol.

Before the days of lifts, people had to walk up or ski up, explained Amann, who had photos of the hill before ski lifts were in place. The terrain, he said, doesn’t change, just the amount of snow.

“This (Whistler Mountain) is where the first ski hill was that had a lift, and eventually people started getting up to Marmot because that was the cooler place to be - the bigger mountain. But this is sort of where it started, at Whistler.”

One local who Amann spoke of, who he said he has always heard was a funny guy who liked playing tricks on people, was Charlie Dupres. “A lot of people still feel that his spirit lives in the upper chalet. I remember one of the old care-takers there said the phone used to ring in the middle of the night, and it was Charlie.”

Dupres became famous for an unfortunate reason – the first person killed in an avalanche on March 11, 1955, in what’s called Dupres bowl. Charlie’s Bowl is also named after him.

After the avalanche fatality, Amann said it was a wake-up call for many people at Marmot Basin that there are in fact avalanches at the hill.

After bringing skiers up the mountain on snowmobiles and snow cats, a small t-bar was built on the Paradise run, and then in 1964, a yellow t-bar went up, considered the first real lift on the hill.

It wasn’t until the late 1960’s, Amann said, that Marmot Basin took over the grooming and ski patrol from Parks Canada wardens. Up until then, the wardens ran the hill, but it was always an excellent training ground for the warden service.

Willie Pfisterer first worked at Big White before working for Parks Canada at Rogers Pass, where he learned about snow and terrain, knowledge he then brought back to Jasper. “Basically, he got the wardens from being untrained to be in the rescue specialists that are today,” Amann said. “Willie basically started that whole progression of training that we’ve all been involved in, from reading snow stakes to snow pits to avalanche rescue – Willie was kind of the first alpine specialist.”

One friend of Pfisterer who he often took climbing with him was prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

Amann explained how avalanche control has evolved over time, from the use of avalanche guns to avalanche dogs to the current avalanche patrol that exists today.

Describing the ‘avalauncher 105’ that arrived in the 1960’s, Amann said he had heard that Klettl had taken out a window of the chalet on one of the first shots ever. To which Klettl replied a simple ‘yeah’, with a chuckle.

Anyone who missed the talk on the history of Marmot Basin can see many of the photos that Amann had in the presentation at the Jasper Yellowhead Museum and Archives.