It was almost by accident that Ornulf Johnsen, one of the most influential figures in the history of our Ski School,
ended up at Grouse Mountain. The outgoing Norwegian ski enthusiast came to the West Coast in 1965 to
spend a year as the first Ski School Director at Whistler during the Mountain’s inaugural season. Following his
year at Whistler, Johnsen had intended to return to Norway but before doing so agreed to house-sit for the
summer for a friend of Franz Wilhelmsen, head of Garibaldi Lift Company. The house happened to be just
down the street from Grouse Mountain. During that summer Wilhelmsen set up a meeting between Johnsen
and another friend of his – the newly appointed President of Grouse Mountain Resorts, John Hoegg. Having
seen the potential of a mountain located so close to the city center, when Hoegg asked if Johnsen would
consider coming on board at Grouse Mountain, it was an easy decision.
Johnsen joined Grouse Mountain for the 1966/67 winter season. At that time the structure of the Grouse
Mountain Ski School, as a contract operation run by Johnsen, was a unique approach in the industry. The initial
contract length was for three years but Johnsen would operate the School on contract until his departure in
1987. “We were the only contract ski school in North America to operate for that length of time.”
Initially Johnsen encountered challenges in setting up the School. Many instructors who had been part
of the previous Vancouver Sun Free Ski School at Grouse Mountain resisted the change in structure to
a paid program. In addition, there were few people registering for the new program in the first few years.
Being enterprising in his approach and always looking for new opportunities, Johnsen looked for ideas from
elsewhere in the industry. He decided to focus on children’s programs – providing safe reliable instructors in
which parents could be confident. The program was launched and with Johnsen’s knack for promotion
they started seeing 400 kids per day on weekends within two weeks. Everything just took off from
there.
Grouse Mountain Ski School was the first to introduce methods like video recording to help teach
technique as well as the ‘Max 4’ approach – no more than four students per teacher. Most well-known
of Johnsen’s developments is bringing the Headway Program of using graduated ski lengths to
Canada.
During Johnsen’s tenure, the Grouse Mountain Ski School was selected as one of the ten best in
North America and saw 400,000 students through its programs. Innovations in teaching methods as
well as marketing
efforts behind the
program were
all pioneered by
Johnsen himself.
He commends the
incredible camaraderie
at the Mountain during
those years. “It was a real
team effort – everyone
pitched in.”
After many years of success
with the program, Johnsen
ultimately sold the Ski School
to Grouse Mountain Resort
in 1987, ending his time at the
helm before moving on to new
adventures.