Island Rambling: The Puzzle of the Boot by Cragg John G

Author:Cragg, John G.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The Shark

We left Chicago in July after being there for only three years, even though we had bought a house very near the university just after starting our third year. Unlike our previous move, there was no need to haul our belongings behind us in a u-haul. This time a moving company transferred our possessions from the Midwest to the Far West. Our car was new, but it was even more jammed than the old clunker had been when we moved to Chicago. Now we had two sons, one of them only ten months old, and an aged Russian nanny who, we hoped, would be with us for quite a while. The trunk was full of things needed for the kids on a five-day trip and the old lady.

Neither of us had been to British Columbia before except for an interview trip. Vancouver was then a rather pokey, provincial town, culturally no match for Chicago, as it still is not. But it offered first-class skiing and boating and the prospect that in the winter months, one could enjoy both. The schools were reported to be excellent. It appeared to be the perfect place to raise kids.

Our interview trip had included a couple of nights at Whistler, which had only just opened that winter. Tanya was an accomplished skier; I was not. While I was growing up in Montreal, I had done very little skiing. I had only skied on a small slope near Beaver Lake on Mount Royal. It had one rope tow, but that was too expensive for me; after I went down the hill, I had to climb up, using the sidestep. It was more uphill skiing than downhill. My boots were leather and were purpose-built mainly by having square toes. The skis were wooden with strap bindings. I never did get to ski in the Laurentians, north of Montreal, where some of my schoolmates would go skiing on winter weekends. With cable bindings clamping the skis to your feet, that type of skiing was regarded as very dangerous by my parents. All winter, I would come home from school with tales of kids who had wrenched or broken their legs skiing on Mont Tremblant so that they arrived in school after the weekend on crutches.

Despite my lack of relevant experience or lessons, we rented skis and enjoyed two days at Whistler, even though I had never been on proper downhill skis. It took an inordinate time to get down the mountain. Whistler was in its early days of being a ski area. On the top part of the mountain, there were only three slow chairlifts. There was only one way down to the midpoint where the gondola, which was the only method of getting from the valley bottom to the main ski areas, ended, and the red chairlift started so that one could complete the journey to the top. There the only refuge was a simple circular building, with windows looking in all directions, where one could warm up and get some coffee.

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