Paradise Basin

A surveyor’s work is mostly technical and professional. But a lot of it is driven or shaped by

people and human relationships. On many occasions, work and life intersected in ways that

made for creative and exciting opportunities. The next thing I knew, I was working with three

unique and different people. One was president at the Invermere Ski Club, the second owned a

D8 bulldozer, and the third rented it. Someone I knew from Golden owned part of a muskeg

machine that was also kind of a snowcat but wasn't really very good for that. This fellow also

had a ski tow in the Edmonton area. We formed a partnership to develop a ski hill at Paradise

Basin.

I was quite an avid skier. Being the surveyor and engineer on the team, I got the job of looking

after the development of Paradise Basin, which is on the opposite mountain to where the big

Panorama Mountain Resort in Invermere is located today. I did quite a bit of survey work on it,

and we determined that there was a need for a ski hill in the area.

Another chap decided to develop the Panorama project, and I convinced my partners that the area

would never support two ski hills. Furthermore, our access road had an avalanche problem that

would take a lot to address. Our hill was in a very beautiful area, but it did not have the drop that

you normally would have in a ski area.

We backed out of developing our ski area. I took ownership then of the snowcat and the ski tow.

I donated the snowcat to the village of Salmo Ski Hill. The ski tow was offered to two different

groups in the Nelson area. I don't know if they are still using the tow, but the ski area is popular,

highly developed, and close to Nelson. Even in commercial failure, opportunities arose.