Ski Haven
I was drawn to do something today. Or rather go somewhere today.
Daly and I were returning from a short hike in Western Maine - Mt Cutler in Hiram. Nice loop in the pre-fall foliage.
As we left Hiram, I turned towards Douglas Hill., or more specifically Dyke Mt. in the town of Sebago.
In the late 1930's, my mother was very active in her high school's ski club. They either built or renovated this cabin at the edge of a clearing and spent weekends going there in the winter to ski. There was no prescribed ski tow and the hill where the cabin in perched was nothing for pitch, but Ski Haven was just that, a haven for teenagers from Portland to stretch their wings a bit and bond over a common love of the outdoors, winter and snow.
It all came about because of a teacher named Ted Johnson. Ted was probably in his mid-20s when he came to teach @ Deering HS in Portland, fresh from Dartmouth and the infamous Dartmouth Outing Club (still quite active today, I witnessed their work as trail maintainers on the AT in Eastern VT and Western NH near Hanover) or DOC. He felt that had worked so well for him in college he wanted to replicate it here.
Hence he started the Deering Ski Club, which expanded to include much more than just skiing, they canoed and hiked in the off season and in general turned around my mother's young life, and therefore, many years later, mine.
Every weekend Ted took a group to Ski Haven, but being the 30s, the sexes did not mix. So every other weekend it was girl's weekend; Mom couldn't afford to go even every other weekend, so she would work cleaning houses to make the $1.50 or so that it took in gas and food to participate once a month. But these times in this primitive building were the building blocks that solidifed her as an outdoors woman, a skier, a hiker.
When she met and married my Dad, a native Ohioan, 1st generation Slovak, he hated winter, he hated to camp, having spent 3 years in WWII living in tents and rain. By the late 50s, she had started to teach him and my older brother to ski and when I came along, it was just what my family did. We skied, we hiked some, and canoed the rivers of Maine or even Ohio.
Ski Haven changed her life and it made me who I am.
Seeing this piece of her history and my history today was very powerful. I had been there once before, in the early 90s, picking blueberries in the field out front with Mom and her Ski Club friend Vi. I have driven past the area a few times since, but today I was compelled, absolutely compelled to park the car and walk up the hill and part the fir trees. I could barely see the roof from the dirt road where I parked, the chimney peeking through. It's still this almost mystical place for me, the reverence that Mom always uses when she says "Ski Haven" and the smile that comes to her lips.
But the emotion that caught me today was somewhat surprising. I felt like a visitor to a different time, but I also felt like I was seeing an old friend dying.
And in a way I am. I am grieving tonight the loss of my mother, oh she's still alive in the sense of a beating heart and warmth, but she's not the woman who used to plan her winters around this escape, and I think my feelings of melancholy today were about grieving that piece of her that's gone forever. She wouldn't even be able to ever get up the short hill to see Ski Haven again.
The cabin is falling down, regrettably I didn't have my camera with me today, a real shame. There were old bureaus outside, merely boards scattered now. Did my mother ever put away her long johns or a wool sweater in them? I have no idea who owns this property now, and surprisingly that whoever does, hasn't razed the place.
Bunks are still inside, mattresses are in shreds, chinking is gone from the logs and you could almost crawl between them. The porch didn't look solid enough to stand on, the roof is breaking in half. It was very sad, but I felt the history there. The outhouse must have been somewhere near as there was an obvious break in the stone wall next to the building, a suggestion of a path.
I haven't called my mother yet to tell her I went there today. I don't know if I can bear to hear the wistfulness in her voice and I'm not even sure why it's in mine.
Daly and I were returning from a short hike in Western Maine - Mt Cutler in Hiram. Nice loop in the pre-fall foliage.
As we left Hiram, I turned towards Douglas Hill., or more specifically Dyke Mt. in the town of Sebago.
In the late 1930's, my mother was very active in her high school's ski club. They either built or renovated this cabin at the edge of a clearing and spent weekends going there in the winter to ski. There was no prescribed ski tow and the hill where the cabin in perched was nothing for pitch, but Ski Haven was just that, a haven for teenagers from Portland to stretch their wings a bit and bond over a common love of the outdoors, winter and snow.
It all came about because of a teacher named Ted Johnson. Ted was probably in his mid-20s when he came to teach @ Deering HS in Portland, fresh from Dartmouth and the infamous Dartmouth Outing Club (still quite active today, I witnessed their work as trail maintainers on the AT in Eastern VT and Western NH near Hanover) or DOC. He felt that had worked so well for him in college he wanted to replicate it here.
Hence he started the Deering Ski Club, which expanded to include much more than just skiing, they canoed and hiked in the off season and in general turned around my mother's young life, and therefore, many years later, mine.
Every weekend Ted took a group to Ski Haven, but being the 30s, the sexes did not mix. So every other weekend it was girl's weekend; Mom couldn't afford to go even every other weekend, so she would work cleaning houses to make the $1.50 or so that it took in gas and food to participate once a month. But these times in this primitive building were the building blocks that solidifed her as an outdoors woman, a skier, a hiker.
When she met and married my Dad, a native Ohioan, 1st generation Slovak, he hated winter, he hated to camp, having spent 3 years in WWII living in tents and rain. By the late 50s, she had started to teach him and my older brother to ski and when I came along, it was just what my family did. We skied, we hiked some, and canoed the rivers of Maine or even Ohio.
Ski Haven changed her life and it made me who I am.
Seeing this piece of her history and my history today was very powerful. I had been there once before, in the early 90s, picking blueberries in the field out front with Mom and her Ski Club friend Vi. I have driven past the area a few times since, but today I was compelled, absolutely compelled to park the car and walk up the hill and part the fir trees. I could barely see the roof from the dirt road where I parked, the chimney peeking through. It's still this almost mystical place for me, the reverence that Mom always uses when she says "Ski Haven" and the smile that comes to her lips.
But the emotion that caught me today was somewhat surprising. I felt like a visitor to a different time, but I also felt like I was seeing an old friend dying.
And in a way I am. I am grieving tonight the loss of my mother, oh she's still alive in the sense of a beating heart and warmth, but she's not the woman who used to plan her winters around this escape, and I think my feelings of melancholy today were about grieving that piece of her that's gone forever. She wouldn't even be able to ever get up the short hill to see Ski Haven again.
The cabin is falling down, regrettably I didn't have my camera with me today, a real shame. There were old bureaus outside, merely boards scattered now. Did my mother ever put away her long johns or a wool sweater in them? I have no idea who owns this property now, and surprisingly that whoever does, hasn't razed the place.
Bunks are still inside, mattresses are in shreds, chinking is gone from the logs and you could almost crawl between them. The porch didn't look solid enough to stand on, the roof is breaking in half. It was very sad, but I felt the history there. The outhouse must have been somewhere near as there was an obvious break in the stone wall next to the building, a suggestion of a path.
I haven't called my mother yet to tell her I went there today. I don't know if I can bear to hear the wistfulness in her voice and I'm not even sure why it's in mine.
posted by Bluebearee at 7:20 PM
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