Transcription of Sugarloaf #169
Announcer: You’re listening to Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle, recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street Portland, Maine. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician trained in family and preventative medicine, acupuncture, and public health. She offers medical care and acupuncture at Brunswick Family Medicine. Read more about her integrative approach to wellness in Maine Magazine.
Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes. See the Love Maine Radio Facebook page or www.lovemaineradio.com for details.
Here are a few highlights from this week’s program.
Kip: I could stay right at Sugarloaf. The skiing’s great, it’s the best skiing in the east, it’s the best mountain in the east, and I’ve skied them all. It is a special place, it really is. I can’t say enough about it.
Jamie: It’s an interesting job and it’s just another twist on the skiing or riding adventure, so you know you’re not just skiing the trails over and over every single day. You’re actually going out and being part of the process and being part of the mountain. It’s fun.
Announcer: Love Maine Radio was made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marcy Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary by Design, Mike LaPage and Beth Franklin of Remax Heritage, Tom Shepherd of Shepherd Financial, Harding Lee Smith of the Rooms, and Bangor Savings Bank.
Dr. Belisle: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’re listening to Love Maine Radio show number 169, Sugarloaf. Airing for the first time on Sunday, December 7th 2014. Sugarloaf in Carrabassett Valley is one of Maine’s favorite mountains. The first trail was cut in 1950 by the Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Club and a group of locals known as the Bigalo Boys. Since then Sugarloaf has become a close-knit community of skiers, snow boarders, and outdoor enthusiasts.
Today we speak with Sugarloafer and schooner captain Kip Viles and Jamie Gadooty of the Sugerloaf Ski Patrol, both of whom are featured in Maine Magazine’s December issue. We know you’ll enjoy hearing more about the Sugarloaf family and perhaps be inspired to take a trip up there yourself. Thank you for joining us.
On Love Maine Radio we really enjoy talking to people who love their lives. In front of us I have one of these individuals, I can tell just by having spent a few minutes with him before getting on the air. This is Kip Viles. Kip was born in Bangor Maine, he is the the owner and captain of the schooner “Victory Chimes”. He’s been doing windjammer cruises on the coast of Maine for 25 years and has been a Sugarloafer since 1961. During the winters he works at WSKI TV at Sugarloaf.
Kip: Channel 17.
Dr. Belisle: Channel 17, so you’re a broadcaster.
Kip: Know before you go.
Dr. Belisle: You have a life that I think many people would envy, and Susan Connolly wrote about this in the Sugarloaf issue. People can read about this and the close relationships you’ve had with people at Sugarloaf. This is a very intentional life on your part.
Kip: It is. It wasn’t something I planned. Just my lifestyle allowed me to do it. The sailing aspect of it, it wasn’t when I started in sailing and got into these commercial sail, the opportunity to grow in that industry was small unless you owned your own vessel. As it went on, more vessels were built ave 1976 and more of the traditional stuff came in, and then one thing led to another and I ended up with the “Victory Chimes”. That’s a long story, that’d take a half an hour how I ended up with that.
All that time that I was doing the sailing part I had this passion for skiing. I was never a great skier. I’m an accomplished skier, but not a great skier. I had this passion for it. In 1961, it started when I went with some friends from Bangor to Sugarloaf. We’d drive over. We were weekend skiers, we’d drive over on a Saturday, drive back to Bangor, get up on Sunday, and drive over. Didn’t have a place there. That sort of opened up. You live in Maine and in the winter, if you’re a kid you want to be outside, you have to embrace winter. Here it is, snow. I just loved doing it. I did it all through high school, and then in college, and then right after college I moved to Sugarloaf.
After delivering a vessel to the Bahamas, and then I left the vessel there, and then my flight took me back to Sugarloaf. It took me to Portland, or to Bangor, I can’t remember which one. After that was done I knew I was going to head to go skiing. Because I didn’t want to have a season without having skiing. I had fallen in love with Sugarloaf as a young man because that’s where we skied. As I got older, I could have gone anywhere, anywhere in the world to ski. The reason you get to Sugarloaf is one is the mountain, and then you stay because of the people. The people that I met there are just … There’s no other place like it.
As you drive up 27, or come in, and you get to Kingfield, and you just feel this release. You get up there. It’s a way of life, it really is. That sign, “Life will never be the same”. That’s has been pretty much it for me. What’s amazing is that the people that I settled with there after I got out of college in the 70’s, a lot of them are still there. Never left. Some of them never skied. Go to a ski resort and never ski. Figure that one out. There’s got to be something there.
I don’t know if I could talk about what it is, or write a book about what it is. It’s one of those abstract things that you just gather in your mind and pick it up.
Dr. Belisle: We had Josh and John Christie on the show last year. John is an old friend of yours.
Kip: Yes he is. I wouldn’t say old. That’s the wrong term, isn’t it?
Dr. Belisle: How about long-time friend?
Kip: Long-time friend, yes. John, the first time I met John, he used to do this, he was Director of Sugarloaf, and he used to come over to Bangor and do the Bud Levitt show. Of course he was from Sugarloaf and he was one of our idols as a kid growing up. That makes John a lot older than I am. They used to plow the back of the parking lot, and John would do some turns. We’d go over and just ah, that’s John Christie. He’d get about two turns in and he’d talk. His mannerisms, he’s always been a funny guy, he’s got a great wit.
There was a turn at the time that they were teaching called the Stem Christie. We thought he invented it. He won’t deny that he didn’t but I don’t think he really did. I’ve known John since then. We have a lot of mutual friends. When I finally moved back up to Sugarloaf he’d gone and departed the skiing industry for a while. He was over at Saddleback. Finally came back and sort of reignited that friendship. He’s a great man, he really is. He’s fun to ski with too. He’s just fun to be around.
Dr. Belisle: It’s amazing to me that we have such a dichotomy. I’m a doctor, I see patients who are older and many of them are very sedentary. I couldn’t imagine them walking down the street without assistance never mind getting on the slopes. When you go to Sugarloaf and some of these other mountains you see people who have been skiing for years and years.
Kip: 80 years old, skiing with 80 year old.
Dr. Belisle: Yeah.
Kip: They just get up. They don’t ski as they used to. I think it’s all about, well, it’s a passion for skiing and a passion for Sugarloaf. I think through all this turmoil that Sugarloaf had and skiing industry had throughout, the passion of the people and the mountain kept it alive. There was part of their that they’re not willing to give up. Besides the fact it’s fun. It really is. Put two pieces of wood or metal or fiberglass on your feet and slide down a hill. It’s a youthful thing to do. People do it until they can’t.
My dad skied with me when he was in 80’s, 97 now. He gave it a whirl in his 80’s. We went down the small slopes. He wasn’t a skier growing up but he did as a young man. It’s winter, get outside. Egads. Imagine sitting in front of a TV all winter long or something like that. I’d go nuts.
Dr. Belisle: There’s also something about the setting. In Maine we’re so fortunate because after a snowfall, you can go up and you can be one of the first ones on the mountain. You see the trees, you see the mountains around you. You get to see, sometimes you get to see the sun set really early. There’s so much beauty to be found in winter in Maine. I think if you’re a skier and you’re in the right place at the right time you get to see that beauty.
Kip: I was up at Sugarloaf this weekend. It’s home, and it snowed. It went from fall to winter. The personality of the forest immediately changes. It’s winter, you look around where you were looking at gray and trees with no leaves and stuff like that, that became white. It’s a complete personality change. There’s a buzz around the mountain because it’s the snow, not that it will last, but the snow guns went on and stuff. It’s this rebirth of this wonderful industry that’s just come alive. People are gnawing at the bit to go.
I’m fortunate enough that in my job at SKI I get to go up with the ski patrol in the morning. I’m up there sometimes at sunrise. To be up on that mountain and look over at the Bigalo’s on sunrise, my vocabulary’s not good enough to explain it. I take pictures of it and we show it on the TV an so forth. I’m not that, I don’t know what the words are. I can’t explain what that feeling is when you’re looking. You look over that Bigalo Range, you look around and you go where else would you want to be? I’ve skied the Rockies, I’ve skied Europe. It’s all beautiful. Maybe it’s because I look across that and I say this is home. Maybe it’s that feeling that is so special, I don’t know. I can’t tell you what it is.
In the water they call it sea fever. The skiing, I don’t know what they call it. Ski fever? I don’t know.
Dr. Belisle: You mentioned the ski patrol. I was able to go up and be with the ski patrol to write an article for Maine Magazine, which is in the Sugarloaf issue along with the article that you’re in, written by Susan Connolly. That’s also very interesting thing. What I noticed about the people who are on ski patrol is the same camaraderie that you’ve described with your friends in the Sugarloaf community.
Kip: The ski patrol are my friends. It’s a passion that they have. They come from all walks of life, all economic diversity. They have this passion and part of their passion in the skiing is the ski patrol. They work, oh my god, their day is a long day. They’re up the mountain when other people are still having a cup of coffee and going, “I don’t know if I want to go up there today or not.” They’re there. They’re opening the mountain, they’re closing, they’re on scene for rescue, they’re giving direction. It’s a huge, huge passion that they have. A huge commitment.
I really have a lot of respect for what they do and how they do it. They had training this weekend. They were practicing evacuating lifts and all that type of thing this weekend. It’s the same people. It’s like the restaurants you go to at Sugarloaf. It’s the same people every year. It’s not a huge turnaround. Once you get there you might as well stay there. You’re really never going to leave, really. I don’t think anyway, I didn’t.
Dr. Belisle: You balance out your love of frozen water with your love of unfrozen water.
Kip: Right.
Dr. Belisle: You have a windjammer out of Rockland.
Kip: I do, “Victory Chimes”.
Dr. Belisle: “Victory Chimes”.
Kip: If you’re a state of Mainer and every state had it’s own quarter made. In 2003 we printed our quarter. Every state has its own quarter. If you look on the back of a state of Maine quarter that’s my vessel. Go figure. The passion for historical vessels on the coast of Maine is unsurpassed in the United States. We have the largest commercially operated sailing fleet. No engines, it’s a sailing fleet, in North America. More that 70% of our fleet are national historic landmarks. Some of the vessels were built back in 1871. These vessels just sort of gravitated to Maine because it was the last place that these vessels could still generate income. They were all built not because it’s fun to build a funky old wooden boat, it’s to generate income for their owners. Some of these vessels, they had no other business to do.
In the 1930’s and ’40’s this windjammer business started. People thought wouldn’t it be fun to go out on these vessels before they all disappear? It created enough income that people could make a living taking people on trips, overnight trips. It started with day trips and then went to overnight trip when the day trip, because the wind change couldn’t back in. Here we go.
It started. What we call a windjammer. It was at one time a type of vessel, and now it is what we do. Instead of what you were, it is now what we do. We go wind-jamming. It’s overnight. It’s sort of like executive camping at sea. It’s not your cruise ship, it’s a different type of thing all together. We don’t have a schedule, we go sailing, overnight, where you going to go? Where we end up. Maine is so perfect for this because we have 3000 islands, or maybe more at low tide. They go out almost 30 miles, so well-protected. It still has this feeling of wilderness. It’s the same look when get atop of Sugarloaf and look over Bigalo, you get on the deck at Isla Ho on the vessel, and look, and you may see one little house. It has that same feeling, this wilderness feeling. It’s perfect for them.
It’s a wonderful season because it’s summertime and it’s June through September. It’s easy on these older vessels and stuff. It’s great. This all gravitated toward Maine. I get into it as a young man because I don’t know even know. I grew up on a lake outside of Bangor and learned to sail when, I don’t know, 4, 5 years old with clotheslines attached to a pea pod, which is a rolling canoe, and we had built a sail for it. When I was 9 or 10 my uncle and my dad ended up with this friendship sloop. It was a sailing lobster boat. All of the sudden I’m on the coast and its opened up this world to me.
I saw these old vessels, and they really interested me. I did all of the racing, the high tech stuff. It wasn’t for me. I liked traditional vessels so much more. So I get into the windjammer business as a kid. Washing dishes, doing anything I could to get on the water. That expanded into doing other things, opening other doors. I sailed square riggers, I sailed vessels that are from 1841 on up. It’s taken me around the world. I’ve been very fortunate about it. It is a huge passion to me. It’s a huge passion. Saving these vessels and saving this way of life is hugely important.
My vessel was one of 3000 built on the east coast. It’s a three-masted schooner. As far as I can tell, other historians may argue the point, but it was the most successful sailing vessel the North American’s ever built. If we didn’t invent the schooner we perfected it in the new world. I can take you 20 minute show right through this whole historical thing. We built two-masted, three-masted, four, five, six, up to seven masted schooners. The three-masted was the most successful sailing vessel we ever built.
It’s the one that survived, has never missed a year of commercial sail in a 115 years, and that’s the “Victory Chimes”. Absolutely phenomenal. She’s been in private hands all her life. She’s done it on her own. She doesn’t get grants. She can’t, even though she’s a national historic landmark she can’t get grants. She can’t get any tax incentives that they gave private citizens to own buildings that national historic landmarks. On her own, without an engine, she’s a sailing vessel, 170 feet long, has never missed a year of commercial sail. She made it on her own. Absolutely phenomenal.
The reason she did it is because she got to Maine at the right time. She always found an owner that would take care of her. She always found people that were interested in going. Without that generated income all we’d have is pictures.
Maybe they drag her up in [Wiscosset 00:16:59]. You remember those vessels in Wiscosset? We could drag her up there, you could watch her rot. God.
I don’t know how I got onto that. That’s how I got into wind-jamming. It’s a huge passion for that, as I do for skiing.
Dr. Belisle: Here on Love Maine Radio we’ve long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepherd of Shepherd Financial.
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Consider this scenario that a lot of us have gone through or that you may be going through right now. You have money to support yourself and your family but it’s not always there at the right time, or you don’t believe that you can access it. That happened to me recently and also in a big way in 2008. Like you I have experiences these financial highs and lows. It feels as though you’re on some kind of a strange roller coaster and that you’re constantly wrestling with what you want versus what you need. You’ve got bills and really want to pay them off. You’re sort of living in the past so you can move forward. Finding peace in the middle of our culture can make it difficult to make good financial decisions. Especially if you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The first step is to stop and breathe. Look around. Walk around. Talk to people. Trade and commerce are going to happen. Money is what makes it easier.
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Dr. Belisle: It’s through your work with windjammers and the “Victory Chimes” and the work that you’ve done in Mystic Connecticut that you were able to throw out the first pitch for the Red Sox.
Kip: Go figure. Some kid from Bangor Maine gets to throw the first pitch. I think Seth Wescott and I are the only two Sugerloafers that have a first pitch. The difference between Seth is he’s a gold metal winner, fun to ski with if you can keep up with him. Yeah, I was working for Mystic on the Charles W. Morgan, which was a whaling ship. It hadn’t been sailed in a century. They hired me to sail it. We ended up in Boston. They had a Mystic Seaport night at Fenway. About three weeks before we got there they asked me can you throw a baseball? Well, when I was 10 or 11 I did yeah. Could you throw the first pitch? I said absolutely. I’m not going to miss this opportunity.
I bought a couple of gloves and a couple of baseballs. Every port we would stop in with the Charles W. Morgan I’d take one of the crew members ashore and mark off the distance, and started throwing the baseball so I wouldn’t miss. I nailed it. 30,000 people watching. It was, just to be out at that historic, because it’s not a stadium, it’s Fenway. The history there. It started at Fenway and hopefully it’ll end at Fenway, baseball. You just think of all of those people that were there and saw the games, and all these great athletes that were out throwing pitches and on that field, that had the honor and the privilege to be out there. I get to walk out there. Holy smokes. It’s quite humbling. It was fun, it was a lot of fun.
Dr. Belisle: We’ve talked about the intentionality aspect. You intentionally are living this life that you love. We can tell that you love it. Anybody who’s listening can tell that you love it.
Kip: Yeah, I have a passion don’t I?
Dr. Belisle: There’s also the fact that you’ve grabbed these opportunities. I believe you were telling me about a conversation you had with your father 40 years ago.
Kip: My dad, god love him. He’s still alive. He’ll be 97 in December. My all-time hero. He really is. His way of life in growing up was always this passion for life. He made decisions in his life after World War II when he could finally settle down and stuff. He was a college student when the war broke out, and that sort of changed everything. He became a naval aviator. It was also family first and then passion for life second.
I had a lot of opportunities, and it was given to me by my family. Not that we had lots of money but we just did this as a family. It was all this stuff. It was great stuff. Always an adventure.
I remember driving down, might have been in high school, probably in high school. We’re driving 95 for some reason. This is typical of my dad, I get my learner’s permit and we were going to drive to, we had to go to New Jersey because he had family in New Jersey. He and I were going to drive down. The day I went and passed my test. Back then an adult had to be with you and stuff like that. He sits in the back seat, gives me the car keys, and says go to New Jersey. So I drove to New Jersey the first I’d ever driven. This is my dad.
On one of these drives he says Kip, you live in a country where you have a choice. Very fortunate to have this choice. You can go with the quality of life or the quantity of life. He says really, I don’t think if you’re buried in a gold sarcophagus or a pine box it makes a whole lot of difference at the end. It’s not a dress rehearsal. If I were you I’d go with the quality of life. Enjoy it as much as you can because we’re all one heartbeat from having that part of the journey over, go for it.
I took that to heart. Watching him anyway, and his passion for life, he still has it. He still has it. He struggled to get around but he still has this wonderful passion for life. You can see it in his eyes and his mannerisms. At 97.
He said to me the other day if you call me up and I don’t answer I’m in a happy place, don’t worry about it. That’s his passion for life. He’ll go it’ll be all right. You can drop me off at the side of the road, I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine, don’t worry about it. I’m going to continue on this path and I’m going to enjoy life as best I can.
He gave me that and I took it to heart. Whether he had said that or not and I had followed this path I don’t know. I’d like to think that he was the one who steered me on to these great adventures that I’d have.
This was during the Vietnam War. Dad, I’m taking a semester off and taking this vessel to the Caribbean and we’re going to sail down there and then go around to the Panama Canal to San Diego. He says when are you going? When are you leaving? The problem with that was that you had this thing called the Draft Board. You had to be careful because you had this student deferment. Anyway I did that, with his blessing. He said I’ll help pack, this is great, sounds great, go for it. What an adventure? Why not?
When I bought the “Victory Chimes” he was the first one to go yes. Everybody else thought I was nuts. Buy this big, large wooden vessel and decide you’re going to make a living at it. Everybody saying are you nuts? With his encouragement off I went.
Dr. Belisle: He was encouraged by his father you said.
Kip: I think so. Although I didn’t know him very well, but he talks about his dad a lot. I remember my grandfather, he died when I was 6 or 7. You’re image is just this physical image, it’s not really, I didn’t get to know him. Just a physical image. I know my grandfather, my father’s father, through my father. I think it was either my father … His mother was always up for his … My dad decided to go get a pilot’s license. His father was like there’s no money in that, what are you doing that for? His mother would secretly give him money to do these lessons. I think a lot of his life’s passion came from his mother, and his sense of humor came from his father. You’d have to ask him, I don’t know. That’s just a guess on my part.
Dr. Belisle: What’s next for you? What do you think your life is going to hold, or does it really matter?
Kip: It really doesn’t. There are a lot of adventures I’d like to take while I could still do them in the sailing and skiing world, and other things I’d just like to at. The “Victory Chimes” sort of holds me here. I love what I do but I have to be here all summer long. I can’t take off. Last year I did, and I found out that the vessel could actually operate without me. I don’t know. There’s a lot of things, I have this passion about history. I would like to explore history a little bit more. I think as a society we stand in one spot and we look down at our feet and we don’t look, we don’t dare to look up and turn around to look at where we’ve been or what our consequences are, look ahead. I don’t know about ahead and that’s all, we all can take that. There’s something about looking behind that’s real.
I’d like to get people to stand up and look behind them and see how they got to where they are. This whaling vessel I took out this summer. Oh, a whaling vessel. Yes, slaughtering whales wasn’t something that we like to talk about. Although it was a huge part of the growth of this country. Without it we might not be where are today. Without the innovation of sailing vessels, that’s another whole thing. You ask a high school kid name an important historic commercial sailing vessel built in the United States, and we built lots, we built record beaters that haven’t been beat today. The records haven’t been beat today. These old, big old wooden vessels.
You know what they’ll say? Because I take high schoolers. They’ll look at you and go Mayflower? Not really American built. We have no sense of how we got to where we are. It was hugely important. The whaling industry was hugely important. Thank god we discovered oil in the ground to save the whales. It was a huge part of American history, a huge part. We lit the world. If you wanted to have a lamp on, because candles were too expensive. If you wanted to have light in the 1820’s you had to have whale oil or you were living in the dark. That’s hard for us to put our mind around. You ask a sailor of the 1840’s could we kill all the whales in the ocean? They’d look at you and go there’s too many of them, absolutely not. We can’t do it. When we started to mechanize it we almost did it.
It was a huge important part of our growth. Not only of the energy that it created that fueled the industrial revolution, but all the businesses that were around it. Coopers, they built barrels, and sail makers. It just fueled us. If Bedford Massachusetts, which was the whaling capital of the world, was the richest town in North America during the whaling industry. I guess it’s like Houston, energy.
It was a nasty business whaling, but it … Anyway, I get passionate about stuff like that. I would love to get and talk and get people excited about that. In skiing, may passion for skiing is so great. I could stay right at Sugarloaf. I travel around, do some skiing, but I went there because that was the best skiing available to me and I stayed there because I met guys like John Christie. It’s loaded with them. They’re still there. Younger people that are coming up that are the next gen, they’re still there. They’re still coming. It’s a wonderful place.
The skiing’s great. It’s the best skiing in the east. It’s the best mountain in the east. I’ve skied them all. I had skied them all. Maybe it’s because it’s so far away, it’s hard to get to, that people … It is a special place. It really is. I can’t say enough about it. Anyway, it sounds like I’m a spokesman for the mountain. Although I don’t work for the mountain, that’s why I’m there anyway.
Dr. Belisle: I encourage people to read more about you and your relationship with John Christie in the Sugarloaf issue of the magazine.
Kip: I haven’t seen it yet. Are you going to show me a copy?
Dr. Belisle: I think we might have a copy we can show you.
Kip: Oh no. I can’t, I’ve got to be sworn to secrecy though, right?
Dr. Belisle: I don’t know if that’s going to work for you. It seems to me like you …
Kip: No no, it’s in there? What did they say in Seinfeld? It’s in the vault. It’s in the vault.
Dr. Belisle: OK.
Kip: No, wow. I think as a pass holder I get the magazine. It comes to my house.
Dr. Belisle: Yes.
Kip: It is a wonderful magazine. It’s great. You’ve done some wonderful stuff with Maine. It’s a great spot. Your magazine does a wonderful job of exploring that.
Dr. Belisle: Thank you.
Kip: You’re welcome.
Dr. Belisle: I think we’re as passionate about what we do as you are about …
Kip: It seems to be here.
Dr. Belisle: About you and your world.
Kip: Right.
Dr. Belisle: We’ve been speaking with Kip Viles who is a Sugarloafer and also the owner and captain of the schooner “Victory Chimes” and also a broadcaster with WSKI TV, Sugarloaf. Thanks so much for coming in.
Kip: You’re welcome. Thank you. It’s fun.
Dr. Belisle: As a physician and small business owner I rely on Marcy Booth from Booth Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy.
Marcy Booth: I can’t imagine that I will ever be an artist. While I appreciate all kinds of art I know that creating it is just something I’m not able to do. I don’t have that kind of talent and I find myself in awe of the people who do. Realizing that all of us have different and unique abilities, and that we can’t be good at everything, is a tough thing to admit. It’s a lesson I teach my children, but it’s a lesson we all need to remind ourselves of as adults.
Recognizing your strengths and talents early are keys to happiness and success. Leveraging those talents that others have is another key to a success. While I may never have a gallery exhibition of my artwork I find great joy in knowing that what I, and my entire team have, is the talent to help businesses run better.
We are the leverage an entrepreneur needs to be successful.
I’m Marcy Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need. Boothmaine.com.
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Dr. Belisle: Many of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour listeners are skiers. We know this for sure. We know that many of them are skiers at Sugarloaf. This is a mountain that I have spent myself some time at, and spent some time with the ski patrol recently for an article which I’ve written for Maine Magazine. Today we have with us Jamie Gadooty who is a president of Gadooty Builders and has been skiing at Sugarloaf since he was a teenager, and has himself some experience with the ski patrol. Come on in and tell us all about what you’ve been doing for the last few years Jamie.
Jamie: This year will be year 10 at Sugarloaf Ski Patrol. First got involved with this, we’ve been Sugarloafers all our life and have spent a lot of time on the hill. Our children started going to the Bubble Cuffer programs, which is a teaching program for the kids where they join a group and you’re with that group the entire winter. We’re very engaged in the hill. At the same time, this was back probably around 2000 or so, I myself was going to be doing some construction at Sugarloaf as well. We started spending a lot of time there summer and winter.
Got to know a lot of the local people and kind of experience more of the mountain scene and just skiing everyday. At the same time I got to know some patrollers, I had some that were friends, and I got to know the patrol director. Always had an interest in first responding et cetera. I was skiing one spring and I had heard, it was a very quiet day, beautiful day, but had heard about a fatality on the hill. It was just kind of a sad thing to see happen on such a gorgeous day in such a gorgeous place.
Later that day I stopped by the site where it happened. There happen to be a few patrollers there so I spoke with them and told them thanks a lot, and said sorry you really had to deal with this. I cycled back up on the mountain and I went by Bullwinkle’s near some local people kind of hanging out there. There was a guy on the porch who had brought, another local, and he brought his bagpipes up and was playing “Amazing Grace”. This is all pretty amazing. That propelled me into wanting to join the force.
That summer I took a basic EMT class and that fall was signed up to go through patrol and its training.
Dr. Belisle: You’ve been doing this for 10 years.
Jamie: This will be year 10.
Dr. Belisle: Year 10. You’ve been skiing since you were a teenager.
Jamie: Probably set foot on Sugarloaf in 1964. Back and forth since then. It was time to give back to the mountain that had given so much to our family. Wanted to make a contribution and get involved with something I thought I’d be interested in.
Dr. Belisle: Have you always lived in Cape Elizabeth?
Jamie: I grew up in Falmouth. Haven’t gone far, across the bridge.
Dr. Belisle: Gone across the bridge. What was it about Sugarloaf in particular that caused your family to want to spend so much time there?
Jamie: I think there was a lot of people from Falmouth that had some of the original A-frames et cetera at Sugarloaf, and a lot of their kids were our friends. My dad was an avid skier. He took us all around, but Sugarloaf was kind of the Mecca for all of us as kids. We never owned a place but all my friends did, so it was a good thing. Had a place to go.
Dr. Belisle: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
Jamie: I had two older brothers.
Dr. Belisle: They also skied.
Jamie: Yes.
Dr. Belisle: When you decided that you were going to join the ski patrol did it seem intimidating in any way? You are a contractor and you own your own company. Did you have experience in any sort of emergency medical services?
Jamie: I had been a member of the Falmouth Fire Department a long time ago, when I was in high school. Had some experience at that end of emergency response but not really on a medical basis. As far as ski patrol goes, no worries about the skiing end of it. The ability there. I had taken the EMTB class that summer. Had somewhat of a comfort level with the medical end of it. Had friends that were involved, so it was a bit of a support network. Not too nervous about it.
Dr. Belisle: Not too nervous. What were some of the things that you experienced on the ski patrol that were different from what you experienced skiing at Sugarloaf just as a supporter of the mountain?
Jamie: Now you’re part of the system and you’re not an end-user. It’s kind of really fun to be part of that system. It’s incredible what goes into that mountain operation to get the whole place going on a daily basis. You sort of observe all the activities going on from that end of it. You’re not just out there skiing away with a bunch of friends. Your eyes and ears are open, you’re watching for what you’re supposed to be looking for with your job. Kind of keeping tabs on things.
Dr. Belisle: When I was there with the ski patrol I was struck by, first of all how early you get out on the mountain. You’re up there before the lifts really open to the crowds. Also that there really is this sense of, despite the early morning, and it was pretty dark when we first all got there. It was pretty cold because that was a day there ended up being a wind hold. People were happy to be there. They were very excited to be putting on their gear and heading up to the mountain. There was a sense of camraderie. There was a sense that there was a job to be done but everybody wanted to do it.
Jamie: There’s never any hesitation about that in the locker room. It’s a great group. Everybody knows what they need to do, so off you go. You can’t always control the weather in Maine as we know. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Dr. Belisle: A lot of what you do, people think about ski patrol as OK, somebody breaks a leg and need to be taken down the mountain, or maybe there’s somebody runs into a tree or gets lost, and these types of things. The ski patrol really serves to help keep the mountain safe in lots of different ways. Tell me some of the things, some of the tasks, the responsibilities that ski patrol is involved in?
Jamie: It starts in the morning. We do a morning trail check. Pretty much try to send a patroller down every trail that’s open. Put eyes on the grooming. Make sure equipment’s out of the way, check on ropes, where they’re supposed to be up, where they’re supposed to be down. Report back if there’s any issues and they’ll send someone down, if some signs need to be put up. From that point forward once that is done and the mountain’s open to public we will cycle in and out of our top holding spot and keep eyes on how things are flowing for the day. We have certain trails that do have slow family skiing only trails, and we really make a point to get on those and impress upon people that we don’t think are kind of going with the flow as we call it to respect those signs, because there’s a lot of people that are trying to learn or they have little kids out.
A lot of people come up to me when I’m standing by those signs, they say thanks a lot. We appreciate having a sanctuary while we’re taking our kids out and getting them learning and all. Those kinds of things go on all day. Just try to keep it all as a safe environment so everybody can enjoy the skiing experience.
Dr. Belisle: Sometimes just by your very presence you’re able to create a sense of calm and try to, people who are maybe going a little too fast or being a little too erratic, they might see a ski patroller and slow down and realize they need to be more mindful.
Jamie: That definitely happens, yeah. If we’re out there, and especially on those marked trails, you’ll see those people who want to be clipping along. They know where those signs are, some of those people, and they’ll look up and all of the sudden they’ll slow down a little bit. Those that don’t go have a nice pleasant talk with them and give them a fair warning and say just please respect what I’m saying and what these signs are saying, enjoy your day, go from there. Most are really good, they respond well to that.
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Dr. Belisle: You also act as an ambassador. The way that you just described it wasn’t you’re not coming in trying to be the heavy, you’re trying to foster some understanding that we’re all trying to ski down the mountain together. You are representing Sugarloaf.
Jamie: Absolutely, yeah. I have a lot of fine conversations going up lifts with people. They tend to start to talk to you and ask about patrolling and all of that. I ask them about their experience at Sugarloaf and hoping they’re having a good time, and if they have any questions. A lot of good conversations happen.
Dr. Belisle: There’s also, on the good days when you’re just making sure everybody’s safe and all the trails are well-marked and everything is in a good place, things can be fairly calm. It’s just like being on a rescue squad or being on the fire department. Some days there are things that happen that maybe you couldn’t of even foreseen. I remember several years back that there was actually a lift that came down. I’m sure that nobody thought that that would ever happen. It hasn’t happened since, and it’s not really … Sugarloaf is a very safe place as are most ski mountains. What happens when something big like that, something big and unforeseen, how do you deal with that?
Jamie: Coincidentally we had had a training that fall, three months before this lift came down, specifically for lift derailment. It started from the top of the mountain, and the training went through the entire triage, evacuation, getting people into ambulances. They actually took these people all the way to the hospitals. It was an A to Z training mission for something, a mass casualty thing, just something like this.
I don’t know if we jinxed ourself but three months later it happened and from our end of it it went off like clockwork. Thankfully no one was, there were no fatalities. There were some injuries for sure, and those people that had the greatest injuries were moved the quickest and the first, and I think we had everybody off the hill within probably 35, 40 minutes. The whole line was cleared within an hour. Everybody that had to be somewhere was gone. It really went very, very well from our end as a response.
You train for those things. We do training in the fall to warm up, it’s a refresher weekend. We all go up for a weekend in usually October. Then we do refreshing all season long. If we have quiet days we’ll go out and practice scenarios on the hill, and simple things like splinting et cetera.
Dr. Belisle: When I was up there with the ski patrol somebody described that lift going down, that particular lift derailment, as being you’re 9/11. The 9/11 piece, that was so interesting, is for you as an organization was that it wasn’t as big a disaster because you knew about it. You knew how you to do this. Three months earlier you had had some training. As much as you can you’re trying to train for things that, they might be unforeseen but they’re not impossible. They have been seen before.
Jamie: Absolutely. You have lifts, the potential of something like that is there. You always try to, I guess, learn your potential calamities I’ll call them, and prepare as best you can for them. We do a good job with that up there. There’s some great talent on the hill for that. Our leaders that train us for all that.
Dr. Belisle: You have to be good at things like knowing how to deal with equipment and equipment failures. You have to know first aid. You have to, is the EMT course is that a requirement in order to be a ski patroller?
Jamie: For NSP and for PSPA, at least at Sugerloaf it’s called outdoor emergency care. It kind of parallels a basic EMT course with a wilderness twist to it. It’s like a thousand page book, and it covers an awful lot of first responder care.
Dr. Belisle: This prepares you to do anything from splinting an ankle to dealing with somebody who stops breathing on the hill.
Jamie: Correct.
Dr. Belisle: You have that piece and you also need to be able to ski. There’s some basic level of skiing that is required for anybody who’s on ski patrol because you need to be able to get to all the terrain all the way around the mountain.
Jamie: Yeah. Don’t forget riders. We do have snowboard patrol people, and equally as controlled as the skiers are. You don’t have to be a big fancy, showy skier. You just have to be strong on your skies and be able to handle the terrain. Yeah, there is a requirement for that. They will check out your skiing or riding ability before inviting you to train.
Dr. Belisle: This is in part because not only do you have to be able to ski around the mountain on your own, or ride around the mountain on your own, but you also have to be able to pull a tobaggan behind you potentially.
Jamie: Correct. Toboggans are, once you get them figured out they actually can control you’re skiing. They can act as a gas pedal and a break. Once you get used to it they’re pretty easy to get around with. You do have to have a certain level of skiing or riding competence for sure.
Dr. Belisle: What are some of the things that you’ve seen as an individual that have impressed you the most? Whether they be situations that you’ve been in or friendships that you’ve formed. What are some of the things that have remained with you as lasting and important as part of your relationship with the ski patrol?
Jamie: I think probably the group as a whole, and the dedication to the entire process. Care of the hill, care of all the customers. When you have that crisis and you see all of that training come together in someone who needs to be somewhere very quickly is packaged and off that mountain within 10 minutes and in an ambulance is probably the thing that impresses me the most. That’s what it’s, we really do it all for. When you see that all gel and come together it’s pretty incredible.
Dr. Belisle: One of the ways that you stay connected with your colleagues and also up on your skills is there are a certain number of required days of skiing every year, and a certain commitment to being a volunteer with the ski patrol.
Jamie: There are. There’s a few levels. There’s an individual level, and then there is a couple level, and then a family level. The family level requires 26 days. These are full days, you can’t come and do a part day. It’s dawn to dusk. If you do the math over the season it takes a big chunk out of the season for sure.
Dr. Belisle: When you say individual versus family level, these are the levels in which you would be able to get seasons passes?
Jamie: Correct, yeah.
Dr. Belisle: That would be the actual, that would be another benefit of being on the ski patrol, is being able to ski additional days on top of the ski patrol time.
Jamie: Yep, you do get your passes. You have your free days. Yeah, that’s a benefit. You usually try to check in with ski patrol and make sure they don’t need you on those days, or that you know that you’ve done a good job spreading your time out over the season, so that when you do go on those free days you know everything’s good with the group.
Dr. Belisle: People who are on ski patrol are of all ages, of all backgrounds. I met with some younger women and some older men and some older women, people that have been there for a couple years, or they’ve been their for their 10th year like you, or even longer. What is it that keeps people coming back?
Jamie: There are patrollers that have been there for 20, 30 years. It’s kind of a captivating job, I’ll call it. If you like being out in that environment, which most of us do, and having that responsibility of keeping the whole place safe, and then having people that you’re working with that have all those same sentiments it just kind of keeps you coming back. It’s an interesting job. It’s just another twist on the skiing or riding adventure. You know you’re not just skiing the trails over and over every single day, you’re actually going out and being part of the process and being part of the mountain. It’s fun.
Dr. Belisle: You have two sons. Will and Nick. Did they have any interest in joining the ski patrol after having seen their dad do this?
Jamie: They both went through the Bubble Cuffer programs as kids, which is an every weekend group skiing training thing. There’s an instructor, usually a younger college person or something, that will take a group of 5 or 7 kids and they’ll have them all year. They break them into various age ranges. My kids went through that program. Nicholas went on and got his first level of teaching, and then he ended up being a Bubble Cuffer coach. Before he left Sugarloaf he actually did one year of patrol.
My other son became a Bubble Cuffer coach until he went off to college. They stayed involved but stayed mostly with the teaching. They were going to be off to college and they were going to be away so they wouldn’t be able to continue on in the patrol work.
Dr. Belisle: How does this compare to your day job? You build buildings. This is what you do. How is this alike and different?
Jamie: It’s alike because it’s another full day of work. As I tell some of the paid patrollers I am now working, this will be 21 days straight of work. If I do patrol for a couple of weekends and work three weeks as well. It’s like another day of work. At the same time it takes my mind completely off of work. When you go to do this your head’s got to be in it totally. It’s kind of a vacation from my daily job.
Dr. Belisle: How has this changed your relationship with people who are in the Sugerloaf community and in the community at large? How is this caused you to feel closer to people, or changed the way you look at them as individuals?
Jamie: I think it’s drawn me into the close knit Sugarloaf community for sure and really gives me an admiration for the dedication of all of the departments of the mountain to pull the whole thing off. A lot of hard working people there. It’s fun to be a part of that. Some days I’ll be riding up a lift, and it’s a nice day, and I see the races going on over here, and I see teaching groups going on over there, and there’s kids doing flips into the airbag at the jump. The mountain’s just buzzing with people. You just sit back and smile and say this is great. When the whole place is clicking it’s really fun to be a part of it.
Dr. Belisle: It sounds like you would encourage people who might have an interest in ski patrolling to look into that possibility.
Jamie: Sure. It’s a big time commitment. You want to make sure that you’re ready for that. Otherwise you can always check in with patrol directors and see if they’re looking for people.
Dr. Belisle: Jamie I know you’re a very busy individual and I really appreciate your coming in and speaking with us today about the ski patrol. I encourage people who are listening who might have an interest in the patrol to maybe talk with you or one of the other patrollers about your experience. We’ve been speaking with Jamie Gadooty who is the president of Gadooty Builders and has been skiing at Sugarloaf since he was a teenager, and can be found on the mountain as a ski patroller. Thank you so much for the work that you do.
Jamie: Thanks for having us in and just a little safety pitch. Anybody that’s listening can always go to NSP.org and they have a safety page. You can read up about just good on-mountain management for safety, heads up stuff. It’s a great thing for parents to look at and impress upon your kids. There is a skiing code. I’m all for helmets.
Dr. Belisle: I think that’s a great reminder. I second that encouragement. I hope listeners who are out there who ski or who have children that ski take the time to go to that website. Thanks so much Jamie.
Jamie: Thanks for having us. All right.
Dr. Belisle: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio, show #169, “Sugarloaf”. Our guests have included Jamie Gadooty and Kip Viles. For more information on our guests and extended interviews visit lovemaineradio.com, or read about them in the December issue of Maine Magazine.
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This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Sugarloaf show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
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