U.S. Ski Hall of Fame receives grant to archive their collection of historic ski films.
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ISHPEMING -- Over 90 hours of never-before-seen footage from the post-World War II ski filmmaker, John Jay, has been hidden away in the basement of the U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in Ishpeming. That will soon change now that the museum will receive a Museums for America grant for over $100,000.
"When we first got the news from Senator Levin's office that the grants were coming in, we were just so excited. It was hard to work for the rest of the day. It was like Christmas in July,” said president of the museum, Tom West.
For years, the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame has been unable to show this rare collection to the public for fear that a standard projector would damage the already fragile film.
"The problem that the Ski Hall had was that they had a lot of historical film, but really no way to use it. So over the years, I talked to them on a number of occasions about getting the film transferred and archiving it, especially for historical purposes,” said Creative Services Director for TV6, Scott Zerbel, who’s been helping the museum with the process.
However, transferring these old films to a digital format is both costly and time consuming, which is why Zerbel encouraged them to apply for the grant late last year.
Looking back, there are obviously no regrets as the museum can now fully illustrate how the sport has evolved through John Jay's work.
"He captured an era when skiing just went through an amazing transformation. It went from wooden skis to plastic laminates to steel edges. It was just a tremendous growth period for skiing,” West said.
These films will take two years to convert, but they won't be available to just museum visitors. The U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame says they will also appear before a national audience during the 2010 Winter Olympics.
