The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

Hats Off to Our Ski History, and Historians

January 05, 2010 - Sunday River just celebrated its 50th birthday, Mount Abram will turn 50 this year, Sugarloaf will be 60 next season, Shawnee Peak is 72. But another Maine company that once built ski jumps and chairlifts is celebrating 175 years.

Hussey Seating Co., based in North Berwick, is well known for designing seats for NFL stadiums like the Patriots' Gillette Stadium and the Sea Dogs' Hadlock Field, but few know that the company built the first chairlift in the East, and some huge ski jumps.

In 1937, The Winter Sports Engineers, a division of Hussey Manufacturing, constructed the first chairlift in the East at Gunstock in New Hampshire. That single chairlift was the second such ski lift in the country, following Sun Valley's chairlift in Idaho in 1936.

The Gunstock (Belknap Ski Area) construction was part of the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Act under President Roosevelt, and included three ski jumps – the largest was 60 meters high. Those jumps built by the Hussey company still exist today, though the largest has become a 70-meter. The single chairlift has since been removed; an authentic single chair is on display at the New England Ski Museum at the base of Cannon Ski Mountain.

Most skiers know that Maine was a major manufacturer of early ski equipment – Paris Manufacturing is a well known name for its wooden skis and sleds. Bass was the first ski boot manufacturer. But not many are aware that the Berwick-based Hussey company built the world's tallest ski jump in 1939. The monstrous jump in Berlin, N.H., was designed with a 172-foot trestle system. Placed on top of a hill, it was gauged as a 65-meter jump and attracted jumpers from Norway and around the world.

According to the Hussey History, as read to me by Peter Hussey, now retired from Hussey Seating Co., Hussey's Winter Sports Engineers built ski jumps in Colorado, Australia and Colombia, South America. In an excerpt from a 1939 ad in the "American Ski Journal," Hussey's Winter Sport Engineers specialized in construction of bobsled runs, toboggan chutes, ski chairs, slalom courses, and grand stands for viewing.

This sixth-generation family owned company started as a plow business in 1835, adapting to winter and water sports in the 1930s, and eventually seating manufacture in 1982. "We don't make chairlifts anymore," said Peter Hussey, "but we are still skiers."

The Hussey family has a proud skiing heritage. Peter was manager of the Gould Academy ski team when he was a student there, and went on to ski on The Colby College Ski Team. Now there are five generations of skiers in the Hussey family, Sugarloafers in fact, including today's company president Tim Hussey, whose grandfather Philip started the Winter Sports Engineering division.

Peter Hussey serves on the Ski Museum of Maine's board of directors, and Hussey Seating Co. is a major sponsor of their Fireside Chats, a traveling narrated slide show documenting the history of Maine skiing.

According to Scott Andrews, the Portland ski journalist who researched and narrates the fireside chats, "Hussey Manufacturing, and their Winter Sports Engineering Service, was at the leading edge of the ski industry. Hussey engineers constructed some of this country's landmark ski facilities in the 1930s, including the first chairlift in the east and the world's tallest ski jump."

Said Peter Hussey: "Scott Andrews is a great adjunct to our Ski Museum efforts, he is doing so much research for the fireside chats and helping keep Maine ski history alive."

The Fireside Chats are rich with the state's ski history. The series called "Down-Maine and Cross-Country: 140 years of Skiing in Maine" is being presented throughout the state with fantastic pictures of ski jumps, like those built by the Hussey company, and ski areas that no longer exist.

Upcoming Fireside Chats:

• Jan. 16 at the Down East Ski Club at Shawnee Peak

• Jan. 21 at the Cumberland Historical Society

• Jan. 23 at the Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Club

• Jan. 28 at Sunday River

• March 18 at The Sugarloaf Inn.

For details go online to www.skimuseumofmaine.org.

For a fun day of retro skiing, The Ski Museum of Maine will also host the 3rd annual Ski Heritage Classic at Sugarloaf on Feb. 13 with an on-snow vintage ski parade followed by an aprs ski reception and auction. I have attended this fundraiser and can vouch for the outstanding ski memorabilia up for bid.

HEATHER BURKE, Portland Press Herald, January 3, 2010


Lakes:
Regions: Sebago, Belgrade, Rangeley


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News