The DOC's 50th Year

THIS January the Dartmouth Outing Club will celebrate it fiftieth anniversary. In Hanover the event will be marked by a weekend gathering of alumni and undergraduates at a Saturday buffet dinner and party, and at a banquet on Sunday. Invitations are being sent to all past officers of the Club, including those on Divisional Councils, and to other interested persons who have been associated with the DOC through the years.

Displays covering both the half century of growth and development and the present operations of the Club will be set up in Baker Library and in the DOC offices in Robinson Hall, where current officers of the Outing Club will preside. For those who wish to ski or who merely wish to look over the Dartmouth Skiway, the Club will hold "open house" at Holt's Ledge Cabin and the Brundage Lodge. Thus the anniversary will be celebrated against a background of the winter sports that gave the DOC its raison d'etre. It all started with a letter written fifty years ago this month.

On December 7, 1909, The Dartmouth printed a letter from Fred Harris '11. "The question 'What is there to do at Dartmouth in the winter?'," it began, "gives rise to the thought that we might take better advantage of the splendid opportunities which the admirable situation of our college offers." This letter started a series of events that was to lead to the founding of the Dartmouth Outing Club in January 1910, under the leadership of Fred Harris.

At first a 60-member organization devoted to skiing and snowshoeing, the Club soon began to include other activities in its program. A "Winter Meet was held on February 26, 1910' including such events as a 100-yard dash on snowshoes, a 220-yard dash on skis, ski jumping, crosscountry races on skis and snowshoes, and a class relay race (won by the Class of 1912). From this first winter field day evolved the present Winter Carnival

Skiing in America grew with the Club. The first intercollegiate ski meet, Dartmouth vs. McGill, was held in 1914, with McGill winning the jump and Dartmouth the cross-country. (At this time results were not added to determine a meet winner.) As years passed, that winter sports team, for a long time under the management of the "Ski and Toboggan Committee" of the DOC, became the world-famous Dartmouth Ski Team, whose members to this day ski as representatives of the DOC..

An interesting note regarding skiing is found in the minutes of the DOC Council meeting held on February 5, 1915: "The engine to haul men up the gull) on skis during Carnival discussed and the consensus of opinion was that it would prove impractical." Almost twenty years later America's first ski tow was constructed.

DOC activities were not confined to the winter months, however, as Dartmouth men soon took to the trails, lakes, rivers, and mountains of the North Country in all seasons; cabins were added to the DOC's property, and in the late '30.' the Club began to operate ski lifts at Oak Hill and Moosilauke. In 1935 the Club changed from a single Council organization to a one with three Divisions guided by a Board of Trustees. These Divisions, whose name are indicative of their activities, remain today: Cabin and Trail, Winter Sports, and Winter Carnival. However, there are at present three affiliated Clubs: The Ledyard Canoe Club, Bait and Bullet, and The Dartmouth Mountaineering Club. The in- crease in activities and the growth of membership from 60 to 1,000 necessitated the addition of professional help in 1926; at present the DOC staff numbers six.

Next month the DOC will complete its fiftieth year. As the Club enters its second half-century, it continues to expand and to change its program in order to meet current needs and to improve the public service aspects of its operations. In recent years, for example, the DOC has con- structed several new cabins, has undertaken a comprehensive instructional program in skiing for undergraduates, has instituted a series of meetings devoted to Polar. Studies, and has organized a trained group of personnel to deal with such emergencies as fires, searches, floods, and rescues.

The "Ski and Snowshoe" Club that was started in 1910 may have reached the sedate age of fifty, but middle age has not changed the youthful spirit of America's oldest collegiate Outing Club, nor has it impeded its growth.