Winter 2010 - The Alpine Club of Canada

Peter Fuhrmann awarded Summit of Excellence
by Lynn Martel
At the height of the summer
climbing season in August 1971,
the Banff Park warden service
received a call that an army cadet had
been struck by falling rock while climbing
on Mount Edith. By good fortune,
the public safety team, led by Peter
Fuhrmann, Parks’ alpine specialist for
western Canada, was practicing rescue
techniques with the aid of a helicopter,
a system Fuhrmann had recently been
introduced to while visiting a friend in
Munich during a family vacation. With
a helicopter, a sling and a stretcher, the
injured cadet was flown to nearby Banff
Mineral Springs Hospital in less than
an hour. With a traditional land rescue
taking hours to carry out, no doubt
the cadet, suffering from serious head
trauma, was saved from succumbing from
his injuries. The modern technology of
helicopter-assisted mountain rescue had
arrived in Canada.
Now, four decades later, techniques
and systems developed by Fuhrmann and
his colleagues—including Willi Pfisterer,
who served as Parks Canada’s alpine specialist
for Jasper, Waterton, Revelstoke/
Glacier and Kluane parks—have since
helped save hundreds of lives in Canadian
national parks and wilderness areas.
Fuhrmann is recognized for modernizing
rescue training techniques within the
mountain parks, introducing the helicopter
sling and for taking generations
of young wardens on gruelling training
missions dubbed “Fuhrmann Sanctions”.
He also introduced the idea of helicopter
Participants on Week 5 of the 2010
General Mountaineering Camp
(GMC), which took place in the
Battle Brook Range of BC’s Columbia
Mountains, were thrilled to find treasure
in the summit cairn on Grand Mountain.
Inside the cairn was tucked a small, rusty
tin which appeared to contain the summit
registry.
Upon opening the tin, they discovered
only three entries inside—one from 1976,
one from 1955 and, most remarkably,
a business card belonging to Howard
Palmer. On it he and E. Holway recorded
the first ascent of the peak in August, 1910.
26 Alpine Club of Canada Gazette Winter 2010
bombing for avalanche control, and
many of his rescue techniques have been
adopted by rescue teams throughout
North America.
In recognition of his numerous contributions,
Fuhrmann, a dedicated member
of the Canadian mountain community
for six decades, was named recipient
of the 2010 Summit of Excellence
(SOE) Award. Sponsored by Canadian
Mountain Holidays, the SOE is presented
annually on closing night of the
Banff Mountain Film Festival to a person
who has made a significant contribution
to mountain life in the Canadian Rockies.
Disillusioned with post WWII
corporate politics after being recruited
for a management position by Shell Oil,
Fuhrmann arrived in Banff from his native
Germany in 1955. He worked on a survey
crew and as a regional draughtsman for
the department of public works before
earning his Parks mountain guide license
in 1961, the same year he joined the Alpine
Club of Canada (ACC). He guided on the
ACC’s Yukon Centennial Camp in 1967,
led climbs in Peru and the Himalaya and
was a founding member of the Association
of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG),
which was formed in 1963.
He worked with Parks’ first alpine
specialist Walter Perren, helping to train
horseback-riding wardens in climbing
rescue techniques. After Perren died of
illness, in 1968 Fuhrmann became Parks’
alpine specialist for western Canada—a
position which eventually included
Cape Breton Highlands, Gros Morne,
Auyuittuq-Baffin Island, Ellesmere
Island, Pacific Rim and South Moresby
parks.
A tireless advocate for high alpine
recreation and safe guiding practices in
the parks, Fuhrmann served as president,
secretary treasurer and examiner for the
ACMG. Starting with Balfour in 1965,
he was instrumental in the conception,
planning and construction of high alpine
shelters on the Wapta Icefield. Believing
the Canadian Rockies had everything
to offer that Europe’s Alps did for the
development of multi-day glacier ski
traverses, Fuhrmann played a major role
in developing the ACC’s backcountry hut
system.
Serving as ACC president from 1984
thru 1988, Fuhrmann’s efforts and expertise
helped revitalize the then struggling
national climbing club, strengthening
management and modernizing its
activities to attract new members. He
also nurtured the ACC/Hostelling
International partnership that led to
the creation of the popular Lake Louise
Alpine Centre. His involvement with the
Town of Banff ’s hospital board led to the
relocation and expansion of the Mineral
Springs Hospital.
“Peter is incredibly deserving of this
honour,” said SOE committee member
Nancy Hansen. “He has contributed to
our mountain community in a variety of
invaluable ways throughout his entire
life.”
Reprinted with permission from the
Rocky Mountain Outlook.
Summit cairn contains rare treasure at GMC
“It was a pretty special moment to
realize that we had arrived on top within
a couple of weeks of the 100th anniversary
of the first ascent of this peak!” said
ACMG guide Jeremy Mackenzie. “Those
guys were tough! We recorded our names
in the registry (and those of the other
successful GMCers from earlier in the
week), and then returned the tin and its
contents to the cairn.”