BLOG: OFF THE MARK

Business in Banff gets it

Nov. 16, 2010

By Mark Kristofic, S-Media

When I first moved to Collingwood 10 years ago, I was under the impression that I was moving to a ski town. I was in for a few surprises.

For those of you who don’t know Collingwood, we boast what I call the largest horizontal in the world. Sure, we only have about 700 meters of vertical, but we have about 10,000 meters of horizontal, with one club blending into another from left to right on the Niagara escarpment.

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Every weekend, the town’s population explodes from 16,000 to in the neighborhood of 75,000. But what absolutely floored me was how few LOCAL kids actually ski. Granted, in my unscientific analysis this has been slowly changing over the years, and Blue Mountain — the only public resort in the area among six private ski clubs — has done a tremendous job in making skiing accessible and affordable through various promotions. But the number of LOCAL kids skiing is still nowhere near where it should be.

Now in Banff, local business saw similar trends and decided to do something about it. Banff Lodging Company and Mount Norquay have again committed to purchase a season’s pass at Norquay for EVERY elementary and high school student in Banff, at a value of more than $200,000. Other businesses in the area have stepped up with equipment programs and afterschool buses.

As Banff Lodging Company President Gordin Lozeman puts it, “Banff is a ski town, we’re just doing our part to keep it going.”

I don’t claim to know the level of local participation in other Canadian ski towns such as Whistler, Kelowna, Invermere, Rossland, Jasper, Mount Tremblant or the Eastern Townships. But I can say in Collingwood it stinks, and as far as I am concerned Banff Lodging Company has laid down the gauntlet of “Ski Industry Corporate Responsibility.”

With S-Media’s worldwide headquarters based in Collingwood (sorry Vancouver, you are a branch office), I am putting on my thinking cap to figure out what action we need to take on to do our part.  S-Magazine