14

Grooming the Rockcliffe Park Ski Jump 74.39.1.80
1913
Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, ON

15

Additions to the tower in 1914 ensured more records were broken with Sigurd Lockeberg clearing 94 feet and Adolph Olsen 93 feet before 3,000 people. In 1915 the tower was re-built along the lines of the Holmenkollen tower in Norway and reached a height of 115 feet. On February 20th, 1915, Ragnar Omtvedt, a professional jumper from Chicago using an entirely different style of jumping similar to current techniques, broke all previous marks with a jump of 145 feet.

16

View of large crowds of people flanking either side of the outrun of the Rockcliffe Park ski jump.
1914
Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, ON

17

Postcard photograph of ski jumping at the Canadian Winter Sports Championships 74.39.1.78
1914
Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, ON

18

On March 6th, 1915 before a large crowd in Rockcliffe Park, OSC jumpers won the Dominion Championship. Alec Olsen took first place for both style and distance breaking the existing Canadian record with a jump of 125 feet. It was to be the last event for a while as World War l intervened. Later in the fall of that year, the re-built tower was toppled in a violent gale. Four years would pass before a temporary tower was built in February, 1919, on a hill at Ironsides in Quebec. Competition resumed, a winning jump of 46 feet indicating a tower far lower than the one destroyed in 1915. The following year, 1920, a new tower was constructed in Rockcliffe Park on the old site together with a smaller jump to encourage a younger generation to take up jumping. Unfortunately, it appears that its hurried construction had already doomed it to a short existence because it collapsed before the end of its first year of operation.

19

Side view of Rockcliffe Park ski jump with unidentified skier in the foreground. x2004.2.1
1911
Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, ON

20

Jumper in flight with crowd standing along banks of the Ottawa River 74.39.1.91
1914
Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, ON

21

Cliffside Ski Club Crest 86.28
1919

22

By 1922, there were two jumping towers in the Ottawa area, a replacement tower in Rockcliffe Park described as "the highest this side of the Rockies" and a new tower built by the Cliffside Ski Club at Fairy Lake. The Fairy Lake tower opened in February, 1922, with an international competition, followed on February 25th, by the Canadian Championship held at the Rockcliffe Park jump. The clubs, Cliffside and Ottawa, were to share the venue for the Championship until 1933; Cliffside SC in 1924, 1926 Ottawa SC, 1928 Cliffside SC, and 1933 Ottawa SC.

23

View from the top of Fairy Lake, Cliffside Ski Club jumping tower 85.22.1.49
1924
Fairy Lake, Gatineau, QC

24

Jumper in flight with spectators either side of the outrun 86.32.1
1926
Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, ON

25

C.E.Mortureaux, president of the Ottawa Ski Club from 1919 to 1946 x2004.3.6
1925
Gatineau Hills, QC

26

Relations between the Ottawa Ski Club and the Ottawa Improvement Commission were always prone to some discord and reached a new low in 1923 when the Commission ordered the removal of the Rockcliffe Park Tower.

It took two years of negotiations by C E Mortureux and many supporters, including members of Cliffside SC, to have the controversial order rescinded. The controversy was finally resolved in 1925. At that time it was agreed that a steel tower would be built to replace the existing one of wood. Upon completion of the steel tower the Fairy Lake tower was scheduled to be dismantled as it was no longer needed. This did not happen. Between 1926 and 1929, many competitions were held on both the Fairy Lake and Rockcliffe Park towers including the Ontario, Quebec and City of Ottawa Championships. (Eventually, and many years later, the Fairy Lake tower would collapse of its own accord never to be re-built.)

27

View from bottom of the Rockcliffe Park ski jump 87.60.1.6
1929
Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, ON