The Ski Journal - Volume 17, Issue 2
COMMON GROUND WITH THE SKI CLUB OF INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISTS
Words: Scott Newman 2023-10-30 08:19:16
The Ski Club of International Journalists was created after World War II to bring a fractured international press closer together. Over seven decades later, that tradition endures. Photo: Andrew Marshall
As the specter of war loomed over an emergent world order in 1951, delegations of foreign ministers from the superpowers of the day—France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union—gathered in Paris at the Pink Palace for an early attempt at diplomacy in what would become the Cold War. But it wasn’t just diplomats and their attachés. Delegations of journalists from each superpower were invited too—among them, Frenchman Gilles de la Rocque. Geopolitical tensions crackled like electric bolts and de la Rocque half expected sparks to fly. What he got instead was nothing. Grim silence. The Russians and their Eastern European counterparts muttered among themselves. The westerners stayed in their cocoon. No dialogue. No intercultural exchange. No free flow of ideas. In that moment, when the world seemed like a powder keg ready to blow, de la Rocque conjured up a cockamamie idea: What if they all went skiing together?
That crazy idea was realized four years later in Méribel, France, when de la Rocque helped bring 65 journalists from Yugoslavia, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany to the slopes for a peak-laden summit. The Ski Club of International Journalists (SCIJ) was born.
Seven decades and 67 conferences down the line and SCIJ is still running strong, boasting 31 member nations and over 1,000 members. Every year, this fearless tribe sets its sights on fresh terrain across continents and oceans.
In March 2023, 95 journalists from 23 countries descended upon Newfoundland’s Marble Mountain. Among them, first-time attendees as well as veterans such as Michel Rochat, formerly of Edipresse’s Le Matin and a 50-year attendee of the SJIC gathering.
The conferences are built around fun, of course, but they also use snow to unite disparate contingents, bringing together storytellers who otherwise would never meet. On day one, I marched with an American flag alongside 22 others each holding the banners of their respective motherlands. Side by side. Arm in arm. It was a mini international congress of mountaineers. On Nations Night, each team serves food and drink from its home country. At a loss for what to serve on behalf of the American team, I helped whip up buffalo fried chicken and Tennessee whiskey. Mixing Serbian rakija with Italian wine, Canadian vodka and Slovenian honey liqueur was head-spinning, as was the “screech-in” ceremony, a Newfoundland tradition that involved kissing a dead fish. There was also skiing, and a whole lot of it. After days of schussing with our United Nations of the written word, we even competed in a heated Giant Slalom race, crossing the finish line to cups of hot spiced wine and slaps on the back. Skiing and storytelling. That’s the potent potable that binds our merry band of scribblers together. It’s a fusion of cultures, a clash of ideas and an explosion of camaraderie, all wrapped up in a whipped cream wonderland for a week each year. And in that way de la Rocque’s vision continues to be fulfilled, taking turns with new friends to melt boundaries and find common ground in the mountains.
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