Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
McFadgen, Lorne
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1935-2012
History
Lorne McFadgen was a Canadian ski instructor and ski school director. He was born in 1935 on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island. Originally drawn to hockey, he learned to skate on icy ponds before his family moved West, settling in the Rocky Mountains and eventually in Vancouver. Transferring his skills on blades to skis, McFadgen immersed himself in skiing. Though he had steady employment with BC Tel, McFadgen chose to pursue a career in skiing. From 1956 to 1960, McFadgen taught skiing at Mt. Baker in Washington, where he earned his instructor’s certification from the Professional Skiers of America. In 1961, he moved his wife and daughter to Vermont’s Mt. Snow for one season before taking the assistant ski school director job (1962 to 1964) at Mont Tremblant under the world renowned ski school director, Ernie McCulloch. In 1965, McFadgen moved on to Kimberley, ON, at Talisman Ski Resort, which had just opened in 1963. He came there to run the ski school and the ski shop. Each Fall, he would travel across the country to the big US Ski Shows including Cleveland, Detroit, Boston, New York, Denver, and Miami, where he would ski on rolling ramps and promote skiing on behalf of the Canadian Ski Association (CSA). He also wrote ski columns for local and national newspapers from 1964 to 1987 and hosted a talk show on CBC radio. From 1970 to 1974, Lorne served as president of the Canadian Ski Instructors’ Alliance (CSIA) and was a director of the CSIA National Board from 1965 to 1979. He was a four-time member of the Interski Demo Team and twice an Interski delegate. Lorne remained at Talisman as president of operations and ski school director until 1990, when he moved to Whistler to serve as a ski instructor at Blackcomb Ski School. Lorne and his wife had a daughter named Shauna. In 2000, Lorne was inducted into the CSIA Hall of Fame and was the first honoured member inducted into the Blackcomb Hall of Fame. His late-career work at Blackcomb, teaching skiing and boot-fitting well into his 70s while battling Parkinson’s disease, showed his true dedication for the sport of skiing. Lorne passed away in 2012, and was inducted into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame in 2019.
Places
Cape Breton Island, NS
Rocky Mountains
Vancouver
Mt. Baker, WA
Mt. Snow, VA
Mont-Tremblant, QC
Kimberley, ON
Whistler
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
Ski school director
Ski instructor
Ski boot-fitter
Mandates/sources of authority
Internal structures/genealogy
General context
Relationships area
Access points area
Subject access points
Place access points
Occupations
Control area
Authority record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
RAD, July 2008 version. Canadian Council of Archives.
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Catalogued August 2023.