Our History
A lot of XC ski centers talk about how old they are, when they were established, how they were the first…at Viking Nordic we don’t think that really matters much. What matters is how much fun you have, how relaxed your time with us is, and whether you feel you were treated like an old friend or not. Having great trails and great grooming, and most importantly, great people, make your day at Viking Nordic fun, not whether we were the first public access ski center in the USA or not. But guess what, we were!
S
tanton Allaben and his twin brother Lee established Viking Nordic in 1970 after moving to Vermont from Connecticut. Stan was extremely active in xc skiing and in shaping the early days of commercial xc areas. Besides establishing Viking Stan led ski tours through the backcountry of Southern Vermont and helped establish a 40 km public trail system in the Green Mountain National Forest in the Peru-Weston area. A certified PSIA instructor he was on the group's Eastern board for many years. He served 4 years as president of National Ski Touring Operator's Association where he was instrumental in establishing a rapport with the US Forestry Service on behalf of ski area operators. An ardent conversationalist, he was director of the Vermont Sierra Club in the early 1970's.
When the Allaben brothers founded the Viking Ski Touring Center in the winter of 1970 it was as an outgrowth of their xc ski retail and catalog business, the Nordic Trader. The trails were a draw to get people to buy equipment. The few trails they had were free, given colors for names, and a coffee can was put out for donations. Given that it was the early ‘70’s they didn’t get much money but did get a few marijuana joints. The trail system grew and Viking Nordic became the first Nordic area to charge for daily trail passes.
Several different ideas were tried – a trail to Weston, inn to inn skiing, and races. Nordic skiing was flourishing in the USA: Southern Vermont native Bill Koch won a Silver medal in the 1976 Winter Olympics, in Boston the blizzard of ’77 made xc skiing the fastest way to get around for almost a week, and we wouldn’t hear of greenhouse gases for another decade. The Allabens were instrumental in starting what became the Nordic branch of PSIA, the group that certifies instructors, and the VTSTOA (Vermont Ski Touring Operators Associations), a forerunner of the group that ties cross country ski areas together, the CCSSA (www.xcski.org). Stan Allaben also wrote detailed guidebooks on local places to ski in New England.
In the late 1980’s the Allabens decided to focus year round on their construction business and put Viking up for sale. An ABC TV advertising executive, Irv Gross, saw an ad for the center in The New York Times Sunday Magazine and decided it would make a good retirement business. While Irv hosted breakfast in the house, Malcolm and Dana McNair ran the center’s day to day operations.
The McNairs had worked at the center for years and each brought great backgrounds to the job, Malcolm having been involved in the xc business almost from the start in the USA and Dana having been raised in the retail business, the daughter of a successful local retailer. Irv invested in extensive off-season trail prep on the inner trail network so that skiing could take place on as little as 6” of snow. The sun deck was built for skiers to enjoy cookies and a warm drink on while taking in the Vermont scenery. By the late 1990’s Irv decided it was time to retire again, although he wanted to still call Viking home part of the year.
In 2000 the Foley family, all avid xc skiers and snowshoers took over ownership as the McNairs continue to run day to day operations. Even though they are Northeasterners the Foley’s had just moved to Colorado for a few years and struck up a deal with Irv that allowed him to stay at the center part of the year. Beth and Peter Foley had been vacationing at various xc centers for years and always spent the drive home talking about how, “if we owned the center….”.
Viking, with it’s great location and gorgeous trails and experienced management team seemed like the perfect place to slowly put some xc dreams into place. Peter is a sporting goods R&D and marketing executive who has worked at Reebok and Rollerblade. He was raised in the deep snow belt of central New York state and took up cross country skiing after seeing Bill Koch’s dramatic Olympic medal.
His wife Beth has been xc skiing since she was a little girl growing up in the Philadelphia area. Their 3 young children, all snow lovers, have been lucky enough to live and ski in New England, Minnesota, and the Rockies. For now they live in suburban Denver where they are the only family that heads East to go on skiing vacations.
But the real face of Viking Nordic belongs to the McNair family. Frequent visitors to Viking have enjoyed Dana’s sense of humor, Malcolm’s easy going way of offering expert advice, and watched their boys Dylan and Gordie grow up.
Malcolm’s involvement in xc skiing goes back to his early 20’s when he set out for the Rockies and ended up in the then-undeveloped town of Breckenridge, cutting trails for a Breckenridge Nordic Center. After a few years of working winters in the Rockies Malcolm moved back to Vermont and started at Viking. Malcolm has a twin brother who works at a Nordic area in the Sierras, making for a great trivia question at xc ski area operator meetings. It is the McNairs that have found a way to keep Viking going despite low snow, a fall off in XC popularity throughout the 90’s, and the constant changeovers of the land owners from whom we borrow access during the ski season.
Now the McNair’s are working hard to make sure that during the rapid development that Southern Vermont is experiencing the trail system does not become blocked. Luckily the folks we borrow access from during the winter understand the value of having ski trail right out your door.
In recent years under the management of the McNairs and the ownership of the Foley’s Viking has concentrated on trail work to increase the number of km’s that can open on low snow, creating special programs for kids, securing and conserving land to maintain the trail network, and upgrading the Guest House into a year round vacation spot. In 2005 the Foley’s acquired 60 acres of woods near the southern area of Roundabout and Boynton. The area has some great topography and natural overlooks and offers a lot of choices to Viking Nordic. We’re not sure what we are going to do with the land yet so stay tuned.
And we’d love to hear your stories about Viking. If you have a memory of skiing at Viking you’d like to share please e-mail it to Peter at peter@vikingnordic.com
December 2006