Alpenglow Ski Mountaineering History Project

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James C. Martin - Personal Communication

Interview, 12 April 2001
by Lowell Skoog

These are preliminary notes. I haven't transcribed the interview tape yet.

Jim Martin is currently 93 (born 9 January 1908), living in a retirement community in Portland. He mentioned that when he was in 7th or 8th grade, he had a teacher named Wally Burr, who took him under his wing. Jim helped Wally make skis in his basement. Later, Wally married and had a daughter, Jeanette, who became a champion snow and water skier. Jim mentioned that he was on the Olympic committee in 1935, helping select the team for the 1936 Games.

Jim has a collection of snapshots in photo albums. When we spoke of the photos, he said they had been inaccessible since he moved floors in his apartment building. I assumed they were in a storage room somewhere, but later (as I was heading out the door) it became clear that they were in his closet, on a high shelf that was not accessible to him. I didn't press to see them, feeling that it would have been awkward. He mentioned that he might ask his family to help him sort through the photos. (I added some of their names to my address book.)

On the wall of his apartment is a photo of Jim with Bill Degenhardt and Evelyn McAlpine atop Glacier Peak during their "Triangle Tour" on August 2, 1930. This photo was reprinted in Cascade Voices. He also had an interesting (tinted) panorama photo of the Snoqualmie Pass area from Silver Peak, taken in February 1928 or 29. The photo shows the pass road, but no other development or logging.

He mentioned that the summit registers from his 1932 trip in the southern Pickets with Degenhardt and Strandberg are in UW Special Collections. The old Snoqualmie Lodge register is also there.

Phone conversation, 13 April 2001
by Lowell Skoog

The day after our interview I called Jim to ask a few followup questions. I asked whether he had attended any of the Mountaineers Tacoma Branch winter outings at Paradise in the 1920s. He said he hadn't, because he didn't have much extra time off work at Christmas. (In Cascade Voices he said he attended one of the winter outings while in high school.)

During the interview he mentioned that he had skied Mt Baker but couldn't recall the date. I asked whether he had skied Adams or St Helens and he said no. I also asked whether Forest Farr (now 97, living in Portland) took photographs on his trips and Jim said he didn't think so.

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