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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021
New book explores Northwest ski jumping
By TOM BANSE
Northwest News Network
Few in the region have tried their luck
at competitive ski jumping, and there is no
shame in that considering these skiers can
reach speeds around 60 mph before they take
fl ight. But there’s something riveting about
the daring sport even for casual onlookers.
The Pacifi c Northwest was once a hotbed for
Nordic jumping as detailed in a new book and
a parallel museum exhibit.
Seattle author John Lundin was research-
ing an earlier book about the history of skiing
on Snoqualmie Pass, when he discovered that
ski jumping was actually a bigger deal than
alpine skiing in the Pacifi c Northwest before
World War II.
“I didn’t realize how signifi cant it was to
the early days of skiing,” Lundeen said. “In
fact, for several decades it was by far the most
popular form of the sport.”
“In those days, the best ski jumpers were
like professional quarterbacks are now. They
were really rock stars,” Lundin said.
Lundin’s new book, “Ski Jumping in
Washington: A Nordic Tradition,” accom-
panies a newly opened, three-month exhibi-
tion at the National Nordic Museum in Seat-
tle. Lundin and the Washington State Ski and
Snowboard Museum, of which he is a board
member, originally pitched the idea for the ski
jumping exhibition to the Nordic museum.
“It seemed like a really great fi t,” said Les-
lie Anderson, the director of collections, exhi-
bitions and programs at the museum.
Anderson said ski jumping became a pop-
ular sport in Norway right before a period of
mass migration. She said Scandinavian immi-
grants to the Pacifi c Northwest found all the
conditions were right to introduce the sport
and bond through it.
“It was a way for Norwegian Americans
to connect with their heritage in a new place,
their new home,” Anderson said.
The exhibition shows the evolution of
ski jumping equipment and features photo-
graphs, fi lm clips and oral history interviews
to showcase ski jumping’s development in
the Pacifi c Northwest as well as demonstrate
its cultural signifi cance.
In this region, the fi rst formal ski jump-
ing events began at Rossland, British Colum-
bia, in 1898. Archival newspaper clippings
describe remarkable early demonstrations in
Seattle and Spokane where Norwegian-born
transplants built massive temporary jumps
after winter snowstorms. Seattle’s Queen
Anne hill witnessed a crowd pleasing jump-
off on steep Fourth Avenue North in 1916.
That happened a few years after a 1913 com-
petition featuring jumps over 100 feet on
hickory skis on Browne’s Mountain, which is
now a hillside residential neighborhood at the
southeast edge of Spokane.
National Nordic Museum
Olav Ulland, Gustav Raaum, Alf Engen, and Kjell
Stordalen perform a four-person simultaneous
ski jump in Sun Valley in December 1948.
‘IN THOSE DAYS, THE BEST
SKI JUMPERS WERE LIKE
PROFESSIONAL QUARTERBACKS
ARE NOW. THEY WERE REALLY ROCK STARS.’
John Lundin | Seattle author
In Washington state, subsequent ski jump-
ing tournaments took place seasonally on
Mount Rainier in summer and in winter on
a circuit that included Cle Elum, Snoqualmie
Pass and Leavenworth. Sometimes Mount
Spokane, Mount Baker and White Pass
hosted, too. In Oregon, tournaments were reg-
ularly held on Mount Hood as well as some-
times west of Bend and at Sprout Springs.
Sun Valley, Idaho, got in on the action by the
late 1930s.
Lundin said he wrote his regional ski jump-
ing history in an intense, three month burst last
year so that it would be ready to be the com-
panion for the museum show’s planned open-
ing in January. But COVID-related delays
ended up pushing back the opening of “Sub-
lime Sights: Ski Jumping and Nordic Amer-
ica” to April 17. The exhibition is now sched-
uled to run through July 18.
Lundin said competitive, big hill ski
jumping in the Northwest suff ered a major
blow when the Milwaukee Road Ski Bowl
at Hyak burned down in late 1949 and was
not rebuilt. By the 1970s, public interest had
faded and the Northwest’s historic facilities
were all dismantled. Leavenworth’s really
big jump was the last to go. Unsustainable
maintenance and insurance costs contributed
to the demise.
In the Pacifi c Northwest, about the only
place where beginners can learn Olym-
pic-style ski jumping nowadays is in Leav-
enworth, where the local winter sports club
teaches fearless youngsters the technique on
what could be categorized as small and medi-
um-sized ski jumps. These are 15-meter and
27-meter jumps, which refers to the distance
from the takeoff to the optimal landing point.
There remain only three operational ski
jumping hills that meet international com-
petition rules in the American and Canadian
West. They are the 2010 Olympic Games
venue near Whistler, British Columbia, the
2002 Olympic ski jump in Park City, Utah,
and another ski jump at Steamboat Springs,
Colorado.
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