It was February of 1933, and a large crowd gathered at Canaan Mountain to watch the Norfolk Winter Sports Association (NWSA) annual ski-jumping competition. The 150-foot natural slope had just been completed to designs by Scandinavian skier Birger Torrissen and built by John Mulville. Torrissen was among a group of Olympic competitors who had been introduced to Norfolk through cross-country skier Olle Zetterstrom of Canaan. With other Norfolk enthusiasts, the men formed the NWSA and cut a network of cross-country trails on the mountainside, opposite what is now the Blackberry River Inn. The popular ski-jumping competition was eagerly anticipated each year and drew some of the country’s best skiers and Olympic champions. In 1938 when rain threatened to cancel the event, an ice pulverizing machine was brought up from Madison Square Garden, and a fleet of some twenty trucks hauled cakes of ice to the ski hill. The following year, with a world war on the horizon, the competition came to an end.

Ann Havemeyer

Photo copyright Norfolk Historical Society.