Like most of us, I naïvely think myself a well-informed, open-minded individual. I believe I know a little about a lot of things. I’m confident discussing subjects from music to sports, literature, art, film, food, wine (mostly cheap) and rare Batman comics. And when it comes to skiing, I pride myself on knowing a lot about the sport and culture; for better or worse it’s my life, and I feel I’m well-versed in its many genres and subcultures. But something happened recently that made me wonder how open to skiing I really was—I met Doug Bishop.
As president of the world’s biggest ski website, Newschoolers.com, Bishop knows a thing or two about skiing. Before Newschoolers, he competed as a sponsored, semi-pro and worked as a park designer for Blue Mountain in Collingwood, Ontario. Back when it was still called New School skiing, Bishop worked tirelessly to build up a fledgling park-and-pipe scene in the notoriously stodgy Ontario ski universe. It was a battle; in a world of private ski clubs where racing reigns supreme, to this day park skiing hasn’t been embraced there like it has in neighbouring Quebec. While Bishop may not have won the war, his many victories are evident in the scores of talented park rats regularly fleeing Canada’s most conservative ski scene. Bishop is a man who makes things happen.
During a snowy chairlift ride together in Washington State, Bishop produced a flask of vodka from his yellow nylon one-piece. The Russians have a saying: A small bottle of vodka makes big friends. It did just that. That day we skied deep Cascade powder; Bishop on centre-mounted, reverse-camber, rockered skis without poles, me on long, traditionally-mounted fat skis with poles that even I recognized as too long. As the hill became more tracked, I became more impressed at how talented this “park rat” from Ontario was. He skied fast laps in deep snow and straightlined hazardous, bumped-up outruns like any skier raised on the plentiful, dense snow of the West Coast. More than anything I was impressed with the things he said between runs.
“I don’t care what snobby westerners think. Skiing is whatever you make it, and we try to make it fun,” he said proudly. “In the East what else can you do? We ski rails. We build jumps. We’d ski pow every day if we could, but we can’t.”
I’m paraphrasing on account of the vodka, but you understand. Bishop’s simple yet elegant point also explained what many label ridiculous trends in skiing, and in that moment I realized that I, too, had been resistant to some of these. When the twin-tip was introduced I had thought it brilliant and bought a pair immediately. Some mocked me—I shot back by calling them dinosaurs. So why was I now suspicious of other exciting new developments in skiing?
Where would surfing be without short boards? Skateboarding without polyurethane wheels? Or, for that matter, any action sport without grabs? All would still be a great time, but if something can be made better or more fun, why wouldn’t you? Sure, soft-as-shit reverse-camber skis might look goofy and pants strapped around your thighs might not be the best choice for performance, but who cares? As long as we’re all having a great time, shouldn’t we just shut up and enjoy it? Right. I stashed my poles in a tree well and followed Bishop as he threaded his way through towering firs. And bonus: now I had two free hands for vodka. —Mike Berard
