27
Skiers wearing Cliffside Ski Club sweaters and breeches typical of the time period. 77.69.1.21919
28
Members of the Cliffside Ski Club pose with sign and club crest in the early 1920s 78.8.1.51920
Gatineau Hills, QC
29
The OSC was not the only club contributing to lodge development in the heyday of trail skiing in the Gatineau in the 1920s. Shortly after its reorganization in 1919, the Cliffside Ski Club also embarked on a lodge building program. Its initial acquisition was a rented house on the Mountain Road near Fairy Lake. Its first lodge was built in Keogan's clearing in 1923, a point where ski trails from Wakefield, Cascades, Kirk's Ferry, Chelsea, and Kingsmere converged. Some years later, it was replaced by Keogan's Lodge at another site near the Ridge road. It was eventually used by OSC members after acquisition by the National Capital Commission. Cliffside's second lodge, 47' x 30', was built in 1925 adjacent to the Fairy Lake Ski Tower. A third and final lodge, also built in 1925, was located in the Birch Valley near Pink Lake.30
Ottawa Ski Club sign, regarding the wearing and use of ski club badges 2003.1.11930
31
Official opening of the Ottawa Ski Club's Lockeberg Lodge at Camp Fortune. 74.39.1.1131948
Gatineau Hills, Old Chelsea, QC
32
Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, activities were increasingly concentrated at Camp Fortune, the outcome of the public's enthusiasm for downhill skiing. New lodge accommodation was needed. In 1948, the Lockeberg Lodge was opened to serve the Slalom Hill and Lockeberg Jump. As the membership increased to over 5000 by the mid-50s, the Alexander Lodge, largely built from material salvaged from the Dome Hill Lodge, was built and opened on 2 February 1958. It was enlarged in 1959 to provide a cafeteria, again in 1962 to improve the basement area, with final modifications made in 1959.33
Sigurd Lockeberg outside the Ottawa Ski Club's Lockeberg Lodge1948
Gatineau Hills, Old Chelsea, QC
34
Scene through a lodge window at Camp Fortune 74.10.41945
Gatineau Hills, Old Chelsea, QC
35
Ottawa Ski Club sign, asking members to keep the lodge and table clean. 2003.1.61930
36
Ottawa Ski Club Night Riders patch1945
37
Other accommodations of note were the three dormitories, named Mort's, Plaunt and Southam, provided for the use of the Night Riders. All were gifts from private donors. Mort's was destroyed by a lightning strike while the others continued to be used for other purposes when the Night Riders were eventually disbanded.38
Ottawa Ski Club Night Riders patch1940
39
Perhaps one of the most astonishing aspects in the development of skiing in the Ottawa region is the prodigious amount of volunteer labour, much of it hard physical work, that went into providing the facilities that allowed the sport, not only to survive, but to thrive.Of all the many members who devoted their spare time to the development of the OSC, it was arguably the organizational ability of Joe Morin that contributed most to the emergence and maintenance of the trail system and the Club's increasing assets. As the trail system expanded so did the need to properly maintain it. A piecemeal approach would clearly not work and in 1924 Joe Morin founded the Night Riders a volunteer group that "…attacked the thick bush in every direction within a three mile radius of Camp Fortune armed with machetes, brush hooks, saws, axes and dynamite." (Marshall, p.41)
40
Ottawa Ski Club Night Riders in front of their headquarters1945
Gatineau Hills, Old Chelsea, QC
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