Alpenglow Ski Mountaineering History Project

Home

June and John Nelson - Yesteryear Olympics

The Peninsula Trails Coalition coordinated and funded the transfer to videotape of 8mm films taken by John and June Nelson, long-time Port Angeles residents and Klahhane Club members. The videotape is mostly narrated by June, with occasional prompting by John. I viewed the first half of the video on 11 July 2001 at PAPL and recorded the narration. I stopped viewing the video about half-way through, since the rest appeared to depict summer horse trips only. These are preliminary notes based on that viewing. I haven't transcribed the narration tape yet.

The cassette box includes this description: "Bright sunny winter days enjoying the downhill ski facility at Deer Park, two-week pack trips into the mountains in the days when the trail started from Texas valley in the Dungeness, Hurricane Ridge without the lodge. These are only some of the images that have been preserved on this video which was made from 8mm movies taken by long-time Port Angeles residents, John and June Nelson."

The video depicts skiing at Deer Park in two segments, one showing 1939-42 and the other showing 1946-47. The later sequence is somewhat better quality, but all the footage on this video is pretty fuzzy. The film depicts skiers touring up the road to Deer Park, then skiing in a meadow. Skiers are shown sidestepping and herringboning up the hill and snowplowing down. The film depicts skiers riding a rope tow and skiing a slalom course. The skiers in the 1939-42 segment are for the most part novices. In the 1946-47 segment, a few skiers are seen performing parallel or uphill christie turns.

Return to the Alpenglow Ski Mountaineering History Project home page