Vancouver Island’s Mount Cain: The Soul of Skiing

Posted on 07. Feb, 2010 by Andrew Findlay in BC, teaser

If you could dream up the perfect ski hill, what would it look like?

by Andrew Findlay

Somewhere in the primordial recesses of a skier’s mind is the memory of a ramshackle operation where the lifts barely limp from one day to the next. There are no double de-caf lattes whipped up by young baristas with Australian accents; instead, hearty bowls of chile con carne are served by a swarthy woman in a white apron who looks like she fells old-growth Douglas firs in her spare time. In other words: this place hasn’t been branded into some generic, four-season destination of over-inflated real estate with slick high-speed lifts whisking skiers to the top of runs as manicured as pressed corduroy slacks. And believe it or not, it exists.

Whenever I need to ground myself with the soul of skiing, I head north 120 km Campbell River to Mount Cain – tucked into the rugged folds of Vancouver Island. Run by a non-profit society, Cain has a total complement of one glove-shredding rope tow and two T-bars. And it’s here at 10 a.m. one morning this week that I stand with my cohorts: Guy, a pilot, and Jan, a local mountain guide, at the “golf clubs ” – a knob of rock that’s a short bootpack above the top T-bar. Snow ghost trees are laden with fresh snow. Below us, the west bowl is a tantalizing sight, unblemished by a single track. Soon familiar faces join us: Tod, Song and a few other bushy-bearded folks with duct tape holding their gloves together, skiing enthusiasts I meet only when I go to Cain. One by one we drop into a narrow chute funneling into the bowl. Calf-deep snow curls from ski tips, frosting our faces. And together we relish in the shared euphoria of a ski hill that is too far from anywhere to be of interest to real estate speculators. This is where the soul of skiing still dwells.

Tags: B.C's top ski destinations, Mount Cain, Vancouver Island skiing

About the Author

Andrew Findlay

Vancouver Island Since buckling into the back seat of a Ford Meteor for summer road trips with the family clan, journalist Andrew Findlay’s restless spirit has found room to roam in Canada and abroad pursuing stories of adventure, business, ecology, travel and whatever else piques the Vancouver Island-based Findlay's curiosity. Amongst his extensive catalog of adventures and misadventures, Findlay has played shinny with monks in Ladakh, spent a frigid night on the northwest ridge of Mount Sir Donald in the midst of a fierce lightning storm, played hide-and-seek with fictional banditos in Bolivia's Cordillera Real, sailed in search of elusive marine wolves along B.C.'s wild central coast and sifted for the soul of a skiing nation in Slovenia.

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