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Lorne Coulter, a pioneer in ski acrobatics

A great skiing pioneer from Kimberley has passed away. His name was Lorne Coulter.
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North Star Ski Hill in the 1960s.

ANTHONY DRANSFELD

A great  skiing pioneer  from Kimberley has passed away. His name was Lorne Coulter.

During his teenage years in the mid 1960s, Lorne began doing ski aerial acrobatics up at our Ski Hill, formerly known as North Star Mountain, (now Kimberley Alpine Resort). Due to early mining exploits up on the mountain, there were plenty of ore piles ­— perfect for ski jumping. Mr Coulter  took it many steps further, doing back flips, and forward flips, singles to begin with, then doubles, triples, and quadruples, forward and back. Lorne would be so high holding on to his knees as he rotated through the air, going over 100 feet before landing. It truly was a sight to behold.

No one to my knowledge, in Canada or the U.S.A., was doing these aerials. I went to a number of resorts ski racing, or free skiing with my dad Tony and never saw anything  like Coulter, a man before his time.

Wayne Wong, Stanley Larsen, Andrew “Air Time” Crosse, Billy Harrison, Mark Hohnwater, they  all came later.

Then in 1966 along came a partner for Lorne Coulter — just as fearless and about as skilled. Mike Olexa (M. K. O) was his name.  The boys would do their somersaults together holding hands, and other amazing things up on The Hill. I remember Saturdays, all of Selkirk High School skiers could not get up to the hill fast enough, to see what Coulter and Olexa were going to try next.

Kimberley Ski School Director Dieter Kindl, and his assistant Harrold Leinweber, would make sure their lessons would be in proximity to Coulter’s jumps. The whole mountain, every local skier, would  be hanging out down from the jump, excitement building, until some body would yell out “they are coming”. You could just believe what your eyes were seeing, the boys were way up in the sky it seemed, floating over stumps, and trees, before hitting their landins — and sometimes not.

Lorne Coulter and later M.K.O. were “the show” up on  our ski  hill. Darn exciting stuff. This guy, while fearless, planned his jumps, pretty carefully, building a kicker to get airborne, and usually hit the jump at 30 mph or so. And away they would go into the wild blue yonder.

They did these acrobatics on  very long skiis, 205 - 210 cms.  Most people ski on 160 -170-cms these days.

Jim Rice, Ski Film Maker, heard about Lorne Coulter and Mike Olexa  down in Kalispell, Montana whileshooting a movie, I believe was called “Ski West”. (I sure wish i had a copy). Jim came to Kimberley to meet Lorne Coulter, bringing  a Batman suit, and a  Robin suit with him. Coulter long and lanky was Batman, slightly shorter Mike was Robin. Now Batman was BIG on T. V. at the time. So Jim Rice recruited some “bad guys” for Batman and Robin to chase after in the  film. Rice asked me to  be in the movie, as one of the outlaws with Jimmy Jolie, and Johnny Jenkins. With no real plot for Batman and Robin, Rice seized upon the idea, of me grabbing a ring on the T Bar, with the Caped Crusaders in hot pursuit. That was all well and good, until I reached the first tower, which really shook me up going through those  pulleys. I do believe Batman and Robin saw me struggle, getting through the pulleys, and declined to “chase me”, so on I went to the second tower. With my skiis on, I was way too far off of the snow to let go and land on my feet. I soon realized my one and only hope, was to somehow make it to tower 4, where I knew the cable was fairly close to the ground, and I could let go and survive this crazy, dangerous  ordeal.

Well things did not work out that way at all. Midway between towers 3 and 4, at the highest point of the cable,   fatigue got the better of  my arms  and I fell  off, falling from the  highest point. Here some good karma fell into play. Skiis somehow flat, I landed on the only visible  patch of snow, on the Tee Bar Line. It being  spring, I landed on that beautiful little patch of snow, and lived to tell the tale. I never did  got a copy of that  movie Ski West. We saw it at the Armond Theatre in Cranbrook later that winter. Seeing Coulter and Olexa ­— and myself  briefly — up  on the big screen was pretty neat. Bert Beattie, later to be the brother-in-law of Lorne Coulter, was one of the bad guys as I recall. I skied with Bert later on at Whistler, and he was pretty amazing in his own right.

So, Lorne Coulter moved to Chilliwack after Selkirk High School, and married his school sweetheart Dorothy Beattie, Sadly iI never saw Coult again after our ski days of  1964 1965 and 1966 . Really meant to, just never got around to it as they say. My Loss.

As a person, Lorne  Coulter had just   an incredible smile, quite   radiant. When he smiled at you, you just felt better about yourself. Completely confident, utterly fearless, and a gifted skier to boot. Seeing Coulter and Olexa on Saturdays was such a treat for anybody who skied in Kimberley back then.

The routine was  ski hard yourself all day, in between watching the boys fly around the mountain, and then go to see the Spokane Jets  play the Kimberley Dynamiters at the Kimberley Civic Centre, (great hockey, better than today, folks) and hit the slopes on Sunday, be back at Selkirk Monday a.m. with a nice tired glow.

Lorne Coulter was  a great skiing pioneer for Kimberley B.C, and a guy many people never saw ski. It was so exciting back then, to see stuff the boys did that had never been tried before. He will be missed. M.K.O. and  “Batman”  Coulter,  what memories you have left us. No one ever did on skiis what you guys  did. You were  before your time, that is for sure. Now gone too quickly.

Lorne Coulter, fear was not in his vocabulary. What a talent.