America's First Ski Tow

In retrospect, it all seems so simple. You have a hill (actually, you have a steep pasture). You have a group of people at the bottom of the hill who want to ski down it. What you don't have is a way to get them up the hill first.

Meanwhile some Canadians up in Shawbridge Quebec, have invented a rope tow to handle this problem but here in Woodstock, Vermont, all you have is a bunch of Dartmouth alums who are getting tired of climbing up the hill. You improvise a lift that attempts to imitate the Quebec model. Which makes it the first rope tow in the United States. Which is great—except that it keeps breaking down.

What to do? If you are Robert Royce, the innkeeper who brought that first tow to Vermont, you hire Wallace "Bunny" Bertram '31. Bertram soon has the rope up and running on a regular basis. Within three years he has set up his own rope tow, patented the invention, and started one of the country's first ski areas, Suicide Six. Bunny Bertram, former captain of the Dartmouth ski team, is on his way to the National Ski Hall of Fame.

Bertram, it seems, could never leave well enough alone. He once operated (briefly) a "speed tow," an enhanced rope tow that hurtled skiers to the top of a hill outside Woodstock at speeds clocked at up to 91 miles per hour. "It took one person at a time," he told a reporter in 1981. "No ski poles, no loose clothing, and everybody had to keep the hell out of the way." Ah, for the slower pace of yesteryear.

The man never invented a tiling (with the possible exception of the 91-mile-per-hour rope tow). But if not for Bunny Bertram, Dartmouth grads might still be trudging up the snow-covered hills of Vermont and New Hampshire, sidestepping and cursing every step of the way. Dartmouth can also claim North America's first T-bar, built in 1935 on Hanover's Oak Hill.

Bunny Bertram gave the lift-and skiers-a needed boost.