By Andra Moss

In February 1934, millions of moviegoers across the country were transported to Norfolk via a Fox Movietone newsreel featuring a ski-jumping meet at the well-known Norfolk Hill. The Nashville Banner announced, “Ski experts at Norfolk, Conn. stage some new thrills when they leap by twos and threes down the steep slide. The climax, however, comes when four of them, each carrying an American flag, leap at once.”

Norfolk Hill, directly across from the Blackberry Inn on Route 44, was described by The New York Times as “one of the most beautiful in the country” in their Feb. 17, 1934, coverage of a competition hosted by the Norfolk Outing Club that paired a 17-kilometer cross-country race with ski jumping the following day. The racing course, “laid out on Seth H. Moseley’s Blackberry River farm, was hard-packed and in splendid shape.”  

The home team claimed top honors the following year, sweeping the 1935 meet.  The Times had high praise for the local star: “Giving breath-taking performances on both of his official flights, [Norfolk’s] Harald Sorensen . . . won premier honors. He evoked prolonged applause from the crowd of 2,000 with jumps of 168 and 170 feet on the towering Norfolk Hill,” while “Ole Hegge of Norfolk won the cross-country test, held the day before.” The Times further noted that “Mayor Robert L. Mouton and Dr. O. P. Daly of Lafayette, La., both of whom made a special trip by airplane from the South yesterday to witness their first ski jump, were among those watching the tournament.” 

Skiing in Norfolk was getting hot.  On Sunday, Jan. 27, 1935, The New York Times reported from a private train en route to Norfolk: “Filled with 500 merry ski enthusiasts — beginners and experts — the first snow train from New York left Grand Central Station at 8:25 o’clock for Norfolk, Conn. There they were the guests of the Norfolk Winter Sports Association on the large, wooded estate of Mr. and Mrs. R. Graham Bigelow in the foothills of the Berkshires. Mrs. Bigelow for a number of years has been enthusiastic in furthering skiing in this county. . . . For five hours before returning to New York the skiers roamed the snow-covered hills and slopes, the more expert ones gliding gracefully down the trails through the woods and the beginners awkwardly tumbling down.”

For the train enthusiast: From New York City an electric engine pulled the snow train to Danbury, where two steam engines switched in to bring it to Canaan. At Canaan, they reconfigured the engines so that one engine pulled and the other pushed the train up the steep grade. Reported The Times, “Promptly at noon Barton Daley, a red-faced, weather beaten engineer who has been driving trains for forty-odd years, brought the train into a special ‘snow train station’ at Norfolk.” Mrs. Bigelow and Mr. Daley made a good team. By the following year, according to The Winter Sports Record, a public snow train was available “each Sunday in snow-season and holidays. It leaves Grand Central after 8 A.M. and stops at Norfolk, Ct.; South Lee; Great Barrington; and Pittsfield.”   

Note: View the full film clip of Norfolk Hill ski jumping from Feb. 18, 1934 at https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/MVTN/id/3993/rec/4