2012 Ski Museum Catalog Showcases Ski Town Artisans

with gifts for skiers from across American snow country

New England Ski Museum’s 2012 Museum Shop Catalog features gifts produced by local authors, filmmakers and small businesses near its Franconia Notch location, as well as from craftspeople in ski towns from Carrabassett Valley, Maine to Truckee, California. The Museum’s staff searches all year for distinctive gifts that have a skiing theme, and over the years has built up a network of cottage industry suppliers who create some unique and compelling products.

The New England Ski Museum Shop Catalog is free on request.

Three new ski history books published in 2011 will interest aficionadas of Cannon Mountain, Gunstock, and Tuckerman Ravine, all located in New Hampshire. Each location has a skiing pedigree stretching back into the 1930s, and for the first time each is the subject of a well-documented history. Franconia author Meghan McPhaul did extensive research for her book A History of Cannon Mountain in the Museum’s Paumgarten Building archives and conducted interviews with numerous local figures over a period of years. Carol Lee Anderson of Laconia has sifted through the vast archives of Gunstock Mountain Resort for her History of Gunstock, and relates the history of one of the earliest ski resorts in the country, including accounts of local Olympian Penny Pitou and the first chairlift in the east. The Museum’s own new book, Over The Headwall, is the result of a 1999 exhibit combined with more recent research. Available in hardcover or softcover, Over The Headwall was printed by Sherwin Dodge Printers in Littleton with graphic design by Steven Stinehour of Lunenburg, Vermont.

Stinehour’s company, Stinehour Wemyss, is also responsible for the magnificent giclée reproductions from posters in the Museum’s collections. Six new full size giclée posters are featured in the catalog, including two striking and popular images, one of Tuckerman Ravine and one from Sugarloaf. Other North Country vendors represented in the catalog are Cherry Pond Designs, maker of elegant wall-mounted ski racks, jeweler Lucy Golden of Franconia, creator of sterling silver snowflake earrings, and Bear Images of Littleton, supplier of silkscreened and embroidered apparel.

“As a non-profit, all our sales support our mission to preserve ski history,” says Museum Assistant Director Linda Bradshaw. “It’s great that we can do that, and at the same time support these creative craftspeople from ski towns around the country.” Products featured in the 2012 catalog and on the Museum’s website originate in such centers of ski culture as Telluride, Colorado (10^th Mountain Division DVD)  Driggs, Idaho (stained glass nightlights)  Stowe, Vermont (ceramic lamps, pie plates & photo frames), North Conway, New Hampshire (custom etched glassware), Jackson, Wyoming (tramway DVD), and Aspen, Colorado (children’s books).

Books and films created by ski museum members and directors have long been prominent in the Museum Shop, and an important book so new it is not in the catalog is expected to be on the Museum Shop website by the end of the year. E. John B. Allen, the Museum’s Historian and author of numerous ski history titles, is just completing his latest work, Historical Dictionary of Skiing, to be published by Scarecrow Press. Board member Rick Moulton’s classic DVD Legends of American Skiing is still the authoritative film on US ski history. Museum member and Cannon instructor Ian Scully’s film on the Austrian influence in American skiing, Legacy: Hannes Schneider and His Disciples, a fixture in the catalog since 2005, will reach a new audience when it is shown on NH Public Television from November 28 through December 10, 2011.

Customers calling the Museum (800-639-4181) or ordering from the Ski Museum online shop connect directly with the staff of the Museum in Franconia Notch, NH. The Museum is open seven days a week from 10 to 5 until the end of ski season.