Telling the story of the development of the sport of skiing in Vermont often begins in 1934, when the first rope tow, a contraption powered by a Model-T Ford truck, was set up on a slope at Clint Gilbert’s farm in Woodstock.  This mechanized apparatus did, indeed, launch a new era as well as a new technology in the history of skiing.  But the story begins with the coming of skis to the north country that involved two Vermonters not often enough mentioned in today’s skiing memoirs: Fred Garey of Thetford and Fred H. Harris of Brattleboro.

For more background on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/early-days-of-skiing-1934