27 July 2006
Sharing the Rope: Guiding and ACC
As the Canadian Pacific Railway opened up the Canadian west in
1885, British and European mountaineers arrived to claim Canada's plentiful unclimbed summits - of which there were none remaining in
Europe's Alps. Mountaineering then was almost solely the pursuit of the educated upper class, many of whom had climbed with professional
European guides. After American Philip Stanley Abbot fell to his death on an unguided attempt of Mount Lefroy in 1896, a campaign was
launched to encourage the CPR to hire Swiss guides to work from its hotels at Glacier House, Field, Lake Louise and Banff. Abbott's
climbing partners returned to Lake Louise in 1897, hiring Swiss guide Peter Sarbach to lead them safely up Mount Lefroy. Sarbach became
the first professional mountain guide to lead a party to a Canadian summit.
The CPR began employing Swiss guides at Glacier House in 1899, when Edouard Feuz and Christian Hasler appeared in tweed jackets with
waistcoats and ties, knickers and nailed boots with long wool socks. By 1902, Swiss guides were also permanently stationed at Lake
Louise. For its inaugural 1906 camp, the CPR "loaned" the ACC two guides, Edouard and Gottfried Feuz. With the camp hosting
more than 100 members, experienced volunteers led numerous climbs. But for many, professional Swiss guides made the difference between
summitting or not.
For the next 23 consecutive years, CPR Swiss guides worked at the annual Club camps, except in 1926 when Canadian National Railroad
guides, Hans and Heinrich Fuhrer, worked at Jasper's Tonquin Valley camp. In so doing, the world's first national mountaineering club
to welcome women also provided its average, middle-class members the opportunity to explore the high alpine in the company
of professional guides - an extravagance then reserved for the wealthy.
European guides didn't just leave their mark on Canadian summits, but also on our ski heritage. Austrian Conrad Kain arrived in Canada
to work at the ACC's 1909 Lake O'Hara Camp. Choosing to make Canada home, come winter Kain introduced Banff's children to skiing, thus
inspiring Banff's first ski club.
After building the first alpine hut in 1902 five kilometres from Glacier House, Swiss guides went on to build Abbot Pass Hut in 1922.
These alpine refuges became the foundation for the ACC's now expansive hut system.
Then in the 1930s, Golden-born Ken Jones, after apprenticing under Swiss guides at Lake Louise, became the first
Canadian-born professional mountain guide. Beginning at the Stanley Mitchell camp in 1941, Jones's contributions as cook,
guide and handyman became integral to the camps' success.
By 1950, only two Swiss guides, Ernst and Edward Feuz, were working in Canada, guiding privately. To stimulate interest in
mountaineering and its guide services, CP brought Edmund Petrig and Walter Perren from Switzerland to the Chateau Lake Louise. When
their contracts expired in 1955, mountaineering interest was so low that CP released them and Petrig returned to Switzerland. Then in
the wake of two separate accidents that claimed four lives on Mount Victoria and the lives of seven teenage boys on Mount Temple, Perren
accepted a National Parks Service offer to organize mountain travel and rescue training for park wardens and aspiring guides.
Throughout the late 1950s, Perren taught basic mountaineering skills to dozens of park wardens who were more comfortable on horseback
than on glaciers and steep cliffs, and Canada's first generation of skilled mountain rescuers was born. When Perren became too busy to
examine candidates, he suggested those he had already passed, including Austrian Hans Gmoser, form their own association under the
auspices of Parks Canada and the ACC. The Association of Canadian Mountain Guides was founded in 1963. Today there are more than 100
fully accredited ACMG guides in Canada.
Through the years, many professional mountain guides took an interest in the ACC's direction, as Peter Fuhrmann did in establishing the
Wapta Icefield huts, and serving as the Club's President from 1984 to 1988. Similarly in 2005, Canadian born ACMG guide Roger Laurilla
was named the ACC's Vice President of Activities.
Throughout the 20th century, dozens of European guides chose to settle here, from the CP-employed Swiss guides of the
early 1900s, to those recruited to work in the burgeoning helicopter skiing industry during the 1970s and '80s. Coming from countries
where roads, villages, ski resorts and gondolas were as numerous as the peaks themselves, they shared their love and enthusiasm for the
Canadian wilderness with their Canadian clients, who in turn developed an enriched appreciation of their own
mountains.
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