Title: Alumni Community

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore, ritual
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Russell Beckerman
• Date Collected: 11/8/19

Informant Data:

• Russell Beckerman is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2019.  He was born and raised in Mendham, New Jersey.  During his time at Dartmouth, Russell studied engineering. He is currently in his fifth year completing a Bachelor’s of Engineering degree. Russell joined ski patrol in the winter of 2016, during his freshman year at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

• Alumni, especially recent alumni, often come back to Dartmouth to visit friends and relive the good times they had as students. Dartmouth has a “big weekend” each term that has more events than normal, and tends to draw a large number of alumni back to visit. Also, ski patrollers can return to the Dartmouth Skiway to renew their patroller certification.

Item:

• Ski patrol alumni always have an open invitation to come back to the Skiway. They often come during Winter Carnival, the big weekend of winter term, and will renew their patroller certifications and/or pick up shifts while they’re back.

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

Transcript:

• “Alumni are always welcome. Plenty of alumni come back and renew their certification. I am  doing my fifth year BE on campus… and I decided to redo my certification, and I will probably pick up a few extra shifts here and there. Alumni are definitely a very present role and love to come back and sit in Topshack and patrol the mountain for a day or so just to kind of relive the experience as an undergrad, and so there’s definitely a lot of involvement.”

Informant’s Comments:

• The alumni are always welcome and happily greeted when they come back. It is very common for alumni to work shifts when they are back visiting. It is also a great way to get your certification renewed back where you first got it with all your patroller friends.

Collector’s Comments:

• This ritual of alumni returning to campus signifies the continuation of the close bonds developed on Dartmouth ski patrol post graduation. Despite no longer being students at Dartmouth, or official members of the ski patrol group, alumni are welcomed back any time with open arms. They want to come back and they do. This is especially seen as the alumni do not just visit, but continue to participate as they pick up shifts and go through the certification process with current members of the ski patrol group. This is a rite of incorporation as the alumni transition into the post-Dartmouth world, they are incorporated into the larger Dartmouth ski patrol family.

Collector’s Name: Lindsay Pitt

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Lore
• Rituals
• Graduation/Alumni

Title: Senior Farewell Dinner

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore, ritual
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Russell Beckerman
• Date Collected: 11/8/19

Informant Data:

• Russell Beckerman is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2019.  He was born and raised in Mendham, New Jersey.  During his time at Dartmouth, Russell studied engineering. He is currently in his fifth year completing a Bachelor’s of Engineering degree. Russell joined ski patrol in the winter of 2016, during his freshman year at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

• Seniors from Dartmouth move to various places all over the world after graduating. Therefore, the senior spring term is a time for final events. For teams and groups on campus, this often includes a final dinner. This is one of the yearly traditions for the seniors on ski patrol.

Item:

• Following the bequest ceremony, the seniors on ski patrol have a group dinner. This is a final time the seniors get together as current members of ski patrol. It is often held at one of the seniors’ off-campus houses, and people will bake food. 
  

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

Transcript:

• “We do a dinner as well, and it’s bittersweet feelings of having to leave [ski] patrol but also knowing that we’ve had so many good memories with everyone.”

Informant’s Comments:

• Informant had no other comments.

Collector’s Comments:

• The senior dinner is a last chance for the seniors to get together and spend time as a class before they all graduate and go their separate ways. Having a home-cooked meal at someone’s house is a very intimate and comfortable setting for such an event. This speaks to how close members of ski patrol get to one another. They often spend a lot of time both on and off the mountain together. Thus, they feel comfortable inviting each other into their homes. The informant’s comment about the bittersweet nature of the dinner also speaks the the fondness with which members of the group generally feel about their time on it. The dinner serves as a transition from being current members in the group and students at Dartmouth to graduating and becoming alumni.

Collector’s Name: Lindsay Pitt

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Lore
• Rituals
• Seniors/graduation
• Meals

Title: Bequest/Chip Ceremony

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore, ritual
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Russell Beckerman
• Date Collected: 11/8/19

Informant Data:

• Russell Beckerman is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2019.  He was born and raised in Mendham, New Jersey.  During his time at Dartmouth, Russell studied engineering. He is currently in his fifth year completing a Bachelor’s of Engineering degree. Russell joined ski patrol in the winter of 2016, during his freshman year at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

• Many groups and teams at Dartmouth have a tradition of seniors “bequesting” or handing down objects and items of clothing to underclassmen before graduation. Ski Patrol participates in this tradition with the unique aspect of telling funny stories or doing small skits to introduce or explain the bequest. Also, many of the items passed down are skiing-related.

Item:

• The bequest ceremony is a ceremony that takes place toward the end of every spring term before the seniors graduate. They pass down fun ski gear and costumes to underclassmen, accompanied with a funny story or skit to explain the choice of item and recipient. During this ceremony, seniors also receive chips that they are supposed to keep with them at all times post graduation to symbolize their continued membership of ski patrol. Very soon after the ceremony, the new board of executives are elected from the junior class for the following year.
  

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

Transcript:

• “One big ceremony comes to mind when you talk about tradition and graduating out of ski patrol, and that’s our bequest ceremony, or we also call it our chip ceremony… The seniors that have been on ski patrol for four years have the opportunity to hand down funky gear and costumes that they’ve collected over the years throughout ski patrol to the younger members. This includes some short mini skis and funky goggles and different things that people wear on the hill throughout the year. It’s pretty entertaining to see who gets what items from the upperclassmen, and in addition to this, this is where the seniors then receive their ski patrol tokens or chips which are basically certify that we are ongoing members of the ski patrol community and its something that we are supposed to have on our person at all times… and essentially just signifies within the ski patrol community who is a patroller… its a nationwide ski patrol tradition, but something we also do at Dartmouth.”

Informant’s Comments:

• “Its very lively, a celebration… It’s also is like a passing of the torch down to the younger class and… they’ll elect their leaders.”

Collector’s Comments:

• This ceremony represents a rite of passage within the group and the seniors go on to graduate from Dartmouth. It is a separation ritual in the sense that the seniors give away many  of the items they’ve collected as members of ski patrol and separate themselves from the current group to become alumni. They also give up their power and control of the group when the board effectively steps down in preparation of the next class’s elections that will take place within a few days of this ceremony. It also provides a space for this transition of power to happen, and for members of the team to spend one last time together as that year’s group. The chips on the other hand are a form of incorporating the seniors into the group even as alumni. These chips signify that a member of ski patrol retains that community for life, even once they have left Dartmouth. They are a symbol of pride, as patrollers will bring them out to connect with and relate to other ski patrollers on mountains, and one of community and their continual open invitation to return to campus to pick up a shift and see the group.

Collector’s Name: Lindsay Pitt

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Lore
• Rituals
• Bequests/tokens

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

Title: New Year’s Eve Event 

General Information about Item:

• Customary lore, ritual
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Anonymous 
• Date Collected: 11-05-19

Informant Data:

• The informant would like to remain anonymous, but has shared that she is 21 years old and is from California. She attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH.  She is currently a senior who applied for Ski Patrol her Freshmen year. She remembers the application process vividly, although she did not end up making the team. Skiing is a big part of her life and while not on ski patrol, she is a ski instructor at the Dartmouth Skiway. She is a pre-health student. Her love for skiing inspired her to apply for Ski Patrol at Dartmouth College.

Contextual Data:

• Every year, applicants are required to come up to school during the tail end of winterim for a few days before winter term begins.  During these few days, they must help the upperclassmen in Ski Patrol pass their certifications, and then the entire patrol partakes in a New Year’s Eve party.  

Item:

• Once applicants make it past the fall term ski patrol cuts, they must come up to campus before the start of winter term to help older members of the ski patrol practice for their winter certification exams.  They act as practice dummies and run drills for a full day on the mountain.  Then applicants and members of the patrol have a combined New Year’s Eve celebration.

Transcript:

• Item: “Once you made it past the first round of cuts which took place at the end of the fall, you continued with the process until the winter.  The second round of cuts came at the end of the winter, which is when I got cut. My year you had to show up prior to New Year’s and help the upperclassmen receive their certifications.  I am forgetting what it is called. It is similar to an EMT certification but for on the mountain. We helped them by running practice scenarios, so we were like the patients and they had to check on us and make sure we were ok.  You spent a day on the mountain. They had to like lift evac you, stuff like that. It was actually pretty fun. What ended up happening is there was a big New Year’s Eve party.”

Informant’s Comments:

• The informant made no additional comments on this item of folklore.

Collector’s Comments:

• New Year’s itself is a rite de passage based in the cosmos. The concept of New Year’s started in ancient Mesopotamia in 2000 BC, where they celebrated the new year around the time of the vernal equinox in mid-March.  Having patrollers partake in a crucial portion of the application process during New Year’s is symbolic. Just as New Year’s represents changing from one state to another, the patroller New Year’s events represent a changing from one state to another as well. 
• The applicants have made it from the first stage of the application process (after the fall term cuts) to the second, so they are one step closer to becoming a patroller. This transformation can be tied to the 3 stages of rituals. When the applicants come back to campus early, before the other Dartmouth students, this represents separation.  They are physically separating from their lives at home, their identities as an individual to spend a few days on campus dedicated solely to Ski Patrol tasks. During the certification practice on the mountain, the applicants must act as a practice patient for a full day. This represents transition. The applicants are acting as test patients for the upperclassmen.  They are learning how to support the other members of the patrol as if they were full-time members of the team, yet they are not quite members of the patrol yet. They are in transition, proving their loyalty and team-building skills before they can be fully incorporated. The New Year’s party represents incorporation. The applicants and full-time patrollers alike bond, celebrating not just the New Year’s but the addition of new members to the patrol.  This celebration is meant to provide the applicants with everything they would need to join the patrol by giving them an early sense of friendship, fun, community, and bonding that will make the transition into the patrol easier.

Collector’s Name: Rachel Mashal

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary lore
• Ritual
• Skiing 
• Ski Patrol
• Application process

Title: Specific Rule: Buckle Your Hipstrap

General Information about item:

• Verbal Lore, Specific Rule
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Nolan Sankey
• Date Collected: 11-7-19

Informant Data: 

• Nolan Sankey is a 19 year-old junior at Dartmouth College. He was born and grew up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Nolan still lives in Colorado. He joined ski patrol as a freshman when he arrived at Dartmouth College. He joined the team because he has a strong passion for skiing. He is the president and founder of Dartmouth College Biathlon Club, which is part of the Dartmouth Outing Club. Additionally, he is always excited to learn more about various aspects of life. 

Contextual Data: 

• Though the informant did not explicitly provide us with specific context that this rule could be used in, it is reasonable to assume that this rule would be used in the beginning of every shift and when the ski patrols go on the ski lift. Additionally, this would be told to every new member regularly as they would be unfamiliar with the rules of Ski Patrol.

Item: 

• “Buckle Your Hipstrap” is a rule that is told to every Ski Patrol member. While buckling the hipstrap is not necessary to carry the weight of the pack, buckling became necessary when the hipstraps kept getting caught by the ski lift and not letting the patrols go. Now it is told very regularly to ensure that no one gets caught by the ski lift.

Transcript:

• “When I first joined ski patrol, I remember showing up on my first day of shift. And the patrol supervisor of the day was giving the morning briefing. And one of the things that he mentioned was to ‘buckle your hip strap on the pack.’ I didn’t see why that was important. I had hiked before and when you are hiking you want to buckle your hip strap because it helps support your pack. But our pack wasn’t heavy or anything. I didn’t think anything of it but I did it and did it as I was told. The next time he said it again. And the third time it happened again. And after that one, I finally was just curious and I started asking about it later on shift. And they said, ‘oh you wanna buckle your pack strap because you don’t wanna ride the bowl wheel.’ And I then.. I felt like an idiot because I didn’t know what the bowl wheel was. So I had to ask ‘what is the bowl wheel?’ They had to explain to me that the big rotating disk at the top of the ski lift that brings sort of the chairs that are going uphill and puts them going downhill is called the bowl wheel. And I was like ‘how.. If I don’t buckle my hip strap then why am I gonna start going downhill on the ski lift. And they had to explain if you leave the hip strap unbuckled, when you bring the bar from the ski lift up and over it will catch on your pack strap or on your hip strap and then it will lock you in and secure to the lift. And the moment that you try to get off, you will realize that you wanna get off the ski lift and ski away but at that point, you are attached to the ski lift. And the moment you realize it, it’s already too late. And you are swinging around the chair already on the way downhill.” 

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

Informant’s Comments:

• Informant’s interpretation: “I think it started when someone did not buckle their hip strap and they got stuck to the lift. So to prevent that they probably started saying this. At this point no one really questions it. And this is basically told from the older patrols almost religiously.”

Collector’s Comments: 

• Collector’s interpretation: Like the informant speculated, this tradition probably have started when someone did not buckle their hip strap and got caught by the ski lift and flung around. After that moment, the rule was not questioned. However, as Nolan mentioned in his interview, he questioned what this really meant, and I would have done the same if I were joining the group as a new Ski Patrol member because this really doesn’t mean anything if you are not familiar with the terms and the situations that the ski patrols face. This is a great example that makes the Ski Patrol a folk group because they have this rule that only the members of the group will understand. Additionally, fully understanding this rule could be seen as the rite of incorporation. After doing the initiation ritual and being inducted as the Dartmouth Ski Patrol, the new members still don’t have a full understanding of the group yet. However, if they understand the slang and the rules that exist within the group, then it would really mean that they are part of the group. 

Collector’s Name: MK Song

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Lore
• Ski Patrol
• Skiing
• Safety
• Rule

Title: Where is Ivo?

General Information about Item:

• Verbal Lore, Joke
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Blake Daugherty
• Date Collected: 11-14-19

Informant Data:

• Blake Daugherty is a 20 year old Dartmouth College Student. He was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and he still resides in Dallas. He is currently a sophomore who recently joined a greek fraternity Alpha Chi Alpha. He shared that he absolutely loves skiing and Ski Patrol was a big selling point for him to attend Dartmouth. 

Contextual Data:

• This joke would be used when people don’t show up to events. However, it wouldn’t be used for those who missed the event but is a consistent shower. Instead, it would be used towards those who don’t show up regularly. 

Item:

• This is a joke that goes around the Ski Patrol that applies to those who do not show up events regularly. The joke is very versatile as the name “Ivo” could be replaced with anyone’s name in the group.

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

Transcript:

• “This is a title that is given in ski patrol. It is like “Where is Ivo?” Ivo is a kid who, I guess, notoriously did not come to stuff. So each class chose their own person. So for us, there is Grace. I forgot who the ‘21 person is. And that kind of led to this whole theory that there is an anti-board to the ski patrol board that does underground… like trying to slight the board and like trying to ruin all of our events and stuff. So we have a theoretical anti-board head and it’s a whole conspiracy theory that has been passed down for as long as I have been there.”

Informant’s Comments:

• Informant’s interpretation: “I think it’s because ski patrol is a very big time commitment. And there is always some people who don’t really want to do that for the full years. So they kind of start dropping out. But also it is a pretty close friend group. So they take notice. And that’s when the whole story and inside jokes starts.” 

Collector’s Comments:

• Collector’s interpretation: The joke seems to revolve around the fact that the ski patrol group is a very tight-knitted community. This joke seems to originate from the fact that the members of Ski Patrol want all members to be involved in the program. In order to encourage people to do so, they are kind of making fun of the people who do not participate in the events. However, they are not doing it in a way that would make those who don’t participate feel bad. Rather, they are almost including those who don’t participate in to the group verbally as they would talk about this joke when they are not there (and when they are there). I think this illustrates their culture well. While everyone wants everyone else to be around, they understand that some people can’t and that is ok with them, but they would just make a little fun of those who don’t show up. Additionally, it shows that they are a really fun group to be a part of as they make the best out of the situation where people don’t show up by coming up with ‘conspiracy theory’ like the anti-board.

Collector’s Name: MK Song

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Lore
• Jokes
• Where is Ivo
• Ski Patrol
• Conspiracy Theory