Blue Mountain

Hans B. Neumann is a history lecturer at Scarborough College, University
of Toronto.

What Torontonian—even those with only the slightest interest in winter
sports—has not heard of Blue Mountain (near Collingwood on Ontario’s
Georgian Bay) if only from snow condition reports on radio stations? For
many years Collingwood was known only as a great shipbuilding centre
where Great Lakes bulk carriers like the Edmund Fitzgerald were built.
Now that the ship building has become virtually moribund in the area,
the Blue Mountain surroundings have become heavily dependent on tourism
as a source of employment. In the winter that means the skiing business.
Blue Mountain has become arguably the most well-known skiing resort area
in Southern Ontario.

Weider exhaustively documents the history of Blue Mountain, a resort
first put on its feet by his father in 1941. Little escapes Weider’s
attention in this text: no detail seems to be too insignificant, no
person too obscure to be left out of his opus. The book is illustrated
by a great number of black-and-white photographs as well as many color
photographs.

According to Weider (himself the owner of Blue Mountain resorts form
1971 to 1978, and currently the chairman of the board of Blue Mountain),
the book’s purpose is to serve as a “contribution to the knowledge
of the history of the area, [and] to record [his father’s]
achievements and those of his successors.” That mission is more than
fully accomplished. Local residents of the area, past and present
die-hard aficionados of Blue Mountain, and those interested in the
history of the area will profit from snow-plowing through the fine
powder of the many pages of this book.