For generations Austrian architecture, après ski ambience, ski school directors and instructors gained notice and profits in the Americas. The Austrian instructors Emo Henrich at Stratton, Hans Gmoser and Mike Wiegele in the Canadian Rockies, used their cultural and entrepreneurial skills to further this legacy. Emo Henrich and his Band engender Austrian gemutlichkeit wherever they go, while the Austrians Mike Wiegele and Hans Gmoser started heli-skiing in the Canadian Rockies.

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Listen to Hans Gmoser, the pioneer of helicopter skiing and founder of Canadian Mountain Holidays, recount: his childhood growing up in the American occupied zone of post-war Austria, and how and why he emmigrated to Canada, where he naturally fell into a life of hiking, filming, and leading ski tours, a life that eventually led in the 1960s into helicopter skiing, which in turn led to him to develop the now famous and largest helicopter skiing and hiking company - Canadian Mountain Holidays.

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Listen to Ian Scully, Director/Producer/Writer of the Legacy Ski History Series, explain how and why the series was made while gaining insight into his Austrian-American heritage, perspectives, and ski experiences. Ian Scully, son of an Austrian immigrant, is a tri-lingual (English, German and Spanish) global citizen, who grew up skiing in Franconia, N.H., where Austrians first came to teach Americans how to ski, and where he is a top-level - Level III - Professional Ski Instructor of America (P.S.I.A.), continuing the Austro-American ski teaching legacy at Cannon Mt./Mittersill, N.H..

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Explains and shows how and why the Austrians Hans Gmoser, founder of Canadian Mountain Holidays, and Mike Wiegle, founder and leader of Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing, pioneered helicopter skiing in the Canadian Rockies. This segment chronicles their stories in large part via interviews with them interspersed by footage and photos of their operations amidst the Canadian Rockies.

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Listen to the Austrian Mike Wiegle, one of the first pioneers of helicopter skiing, recount his first years in the United States and Canada, where he led a life of ski instructing, filming, and leading ski tours, which by the early 1970s developed into a helicopter skiing business of his own - the well known Mike Wiegle Helicopter Skiing, Snowboarding and Hiking Company, located in Blue River, British Columbia, Canada.

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Explains and shows how in the 1960s and 1970s, due in large part to the leadership of the Austrian ski school director Emo Henrich, Stratton, Vermont, became home to numerous top-flight skiers and a birthplace of freestyle skiing and snowboarding, as pioneers of freestyle skiing, like Austrians Hermann Goellner and Stefan Schernthaner, and later Jake Burton of snowboarding fame, resided and worked at Stratton. The Stratton story is told in large part by Ann and Emo Henrich, and Stefan Schernthaner. The Stratton story is followed by an explanation of how and why the Austrians Hans Gmoser, founder of Canadian Mountain Holidays, and Mike Wiegle, founder and leader of Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing, pioneered heli-skiing in the Canadian Rockies. This part chronicles their stories in large part in their own words. And lastly, this story ends with a explanation and summation of Austria’s large, continual influence on the world of skiing, as well as a forecast for the future of skiing from three key Austrian ski pioneers, i.e. Werner Woerndle, former Austrian Ski Team Coach and director of Ski Academy Austria in St. Christoph am Arlberg, as well as Hans Gmoser, and Mike Wiegele.

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Explains and shows over the past hundred years Austria has become synonymous with most any and everything related to alpine skiing.  As Austrians molded some the world’s most prominent alpine ski racers, ski techniques and ski resorts, Austria became the home and heart of the alpine ski industry. As Woerner Woerndle, director of Ski Academy Austria and former Austrian Ski Team coach, explains, “Austria has the locations.  We have beautiful ski areas, we have widely developed areas.  We have not only skiers but we have ski industry.  We really have ski industry.  We have the ski athletes.  We have the ski teachers, but also we have companies who design ski lifts, who design grooming machines, who design snowmaking facilities. We have Doppelmayr, the ski lift  company, which is a company that is active worldwide from Greenland to Fireland, everywhere you find their ski lifts. Ski maintenance industry ,of course Wintersteiger.  We have the ski companies, the ski builders.  We have ski outfitters, skis, boots, binding, poles, everything, clothing. You can start with the ex-ski companies like Kastle, that is Nordica today.  You have the ex Kneissel company.  You have Atomic, you have Blizzard, Fischer, worldwide ski brands located in Austria.  You have Hart,  Head, Tyrolia, and there is a lot more [like Burton].”

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Explains and shows how then Stratton Mtn. ski school director Emo Henrich advised Jake Burton in his initial attempts to develop the first of his now famous Burton snowboards.

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Explains and shows how Stratton, Vermont, developed in large part by Frank Snyder, who wanted to create an Austrian style resort in southern Vermont, hired the Austrian Emo Henrich to be its first ski school director, and how with Frank’s support Emo developed a first-rate ski school that featured many Austrians who were not only top-flight skiers, but also accomplished musicians. Together Emo, an accomplished musician himself, and his instructors regularly provided their skiing guests with Austrian alpine après skiing music and dance as their band became known as the Stratton Mountain Boys, a band which became so beloved and sought after it began touring North America in the off-season. Also, during this time, 1960s-1970s, Stratton became a birthplace of freestyle skiing and snowboarding, as pioneers of freestyle skiing, like the Austrian Hermann Goellner and Stefan Schernthaner, and Jake Burton of snowboarding fame resided and worked at Stratton. The Stratton story is told in large part by Ann and Emo Henrich, Stefan Schernthaner, present leader of the Stratton Mountain Boys Band, as well as their well-known Austrian 1960 Olympic medalists and ski instructor colleagues and friends Ernst Hinterseer and Hias Leitner, both of whom raced for Stratton on the pro racing tour.

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Explains and shows why and how the Austrian Emo Henrich, the first ski school director at Stratton, with the support of Stratton’s owner Frank’s Synder, developed a first-rate ski school that featured many Austrians who were not only top-flight skiers, but also accomplished musicians. Together Emo, an accomplished musician himself, and his instructors regularly provided their skiing guests with gemultichkeit (coziness and collegiality) with their Austrian alpine après ski music and dance as their band became known as the Stratton Mountain Boys, a band which became so beloved and in demand that it began touring North America in the off-season. This story is told by Emo, former band member Otto Egger, and present band leader, and former freestyle ski champion, Stefan Schnerthaner. Otto and Stefan also explain the role such music making plays in the fabric of Austrian alpine village life.

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Explains and shows how Bill Lash, founder and first President of the Professional Ski Instructors Association of America (P.S.I.A.), started in 1987 the Veteran Ski Instructors Reunion to, as he says, recreate, “skiing together in the mountains, and bring back the golden years of skiing,  because  P.S.I.A. was not having a national convention. Ski instructors meeting that they have in the Spring were about clinics and technique and lectures.  I wanted to do something where we all get together and ski together, and talk about the old days, and that is why I decided to start honoring people who were important to my life in skiing and contributed a lot to skiing.  And I honored my friend Alf Engen, and I had that wonderful reunion, I call it the Arlberg Reunion with Friedl Pfeifer, and Otto Lang and Herbert Schneider.  And I have continued to honor people every year.”  

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