Pond Skim Tradition

Title: Pond Skim Tradition

General Information about item:

  • Customary Lore, End-of-season Tradition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Anonymous
  • Date Collected: 11-14-19

Informant Data:

  • The informant would like to remain anonymous, but has shared that he is 19 years old and was born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts. He grew up skiing because his dad was an avid skier. He started to ski at the young age of 4 years old. He is heavily involved in Ski Patrol as he is one of the ‘apprenti liaisons’ who train the new members of Ski Patrol. He shared that he really loves Ski Patrol.

Contextual Data:

  • This tradition comes once a year as it comes at the end of the ski season. This is not particularly exclusive to the Ski Patrol group; however, they are the ones who created it and host it every year. 

Item:

  • Pond skim tradition is a tradition that started a few years ago. It allows the Dartmouth students and other ski goers to close out the ski season with skimming on a pond that the Ski Patrol dug out. Pond is around 80 feet long and 20 feet wide. Some successfully skim over the pond while others wipe out.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

  • Informant would like to remain anonymous; therefore, the audio will not be attached to ensure the anonymity of the informant.

Transcript:

  •  “So this is actually a pretty new tradition for Ski Patrol. In the past few years, we started to host pond skim at the Skiway. Basically the idea of the pond skim is that at the end of the season, a week after the mountain closes, we dig out this hole. We line it up with tarps and fill it with water at the bottom of one of the runs. People can come and they pay to ski down and skim across the pond. And all the proceeds that we get from the pond skim go to the Special Olympics, which is a program that we partner with during the rest of the year. Or earlier in the season. It is a pretty cool tradition. A lot of other mountains host a pond skim so we are not like inventing anything crazy but it is a pretty fun event. I think this past year, I think over 500 Dartmouth students came out to it. It is open to students but also the public. There are families there too. Some people also dress up in wacky costumes and there is a prize for best wipeout. And people go across in pairs and stuff like that. It is a very fun day. It is the last organized thing we have for the season. So it is kind of like a capstone event for the Ski Patrol Season. This past spring, I guess, was the third pond skim. And it is a tradition that we intend to keep going on for awhile. I am not sure who started it but I can guess that the seniors now would have been freshman the first year it happened. And it has continued all this year. I assume that the board three years ago was the one who started the tradition. 

Informant’s Comments:

  • Informant’s interpretation: “For me, the pond skim is somewhat of a send off. In the spring, there are a few commitments, but for the most part, there are not many more official ski patrol duties. The pond skim is on one of the last weekends of the season and acts as a sort of book end of the season. On top of that, it’s a super fun way to get people out to the skiway and to give back. We get patrollers, but we also get other students and people from the surrounding community. And at the end of the day, it raises money for a good cause, which makes it even better.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • Collector’s interpretation: Ski Patrol is a very close and exclusive group as it requires an immense amount of skill in skiing to rescue people and act in an emergency situation. At the same time, it is filled with many people who love to have fun and help others have fun at the skiway. Pond skimming is one of the ways that they could help others have fun. Because it is open to everyone, pond skimming is a great way for those who comes by the skiway to have fun and enjoy the last bit of ski season. This tradition really shows that the members of the ski patrol cares about other skiers who come by the skiway. Additionally, this is a great way for the ski patrol group to bring everyone together who is feeling the same bittersweetness of the season ending. In looking at this tradition through the lens of rite of passage, this could be seen as the rite of transition for the ski patrol members. After this tradition, the ski patrol members would return to being a regular Dartmouth student who doesn’t have to think about rescuing or saving people on the skiway. 

Collector’s Name: MK Song

Tags/Keywords:

  • End-of-season tradition
  • Tradition
  • Pond Skim
  • Ski Patrol

 

 

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