The founding of Swiss Ski School Villars
In 1936, the first Alpine skiing event at the Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen opened to great controversy: the IOC prohibited ski instructors, considered to be professionals, from taking part in Alpine skiing events, a discipline newly introduced to the Olympic program. This decision angered Swiss and Austrian skiers, who boycotted the events.
However, the Great Depression of the 1930s did not seem to hinder the general development of skiing and the thriving tourist industry in Villars in particular.
This sudden boom in skiing, combined with the strong development of winter tourism, led to a significant increase in the number of skiers, and the need to organize ski lessons was soon felt. Switzerland’s first ski school is founded in St. Moritz in 1929, with Andermatt welcoming the first candidates for the Swiss ski instructor’s diploma in winter 1931. The local skiers Robert Follin, Hans Flotron, Jean-Louis Chable and Reynold and Edmond Dubi were part of the team.
In Villars, in the winter of 1933, seven ski enthusiasts – R. Tissot, A. Bonzon, H. Bohren, R. Ruchet, A. Andenmatten and H. Flotron – establish the Swiss Ski School Villars-Bretaye under the direction of Otto Schaer. The Dubi brothers and Jean-Louis Chable joined them the following year. An umbrella organization for ski teaching in Switzerland is established the same year: L’Interassociation Suisse pour le Ski (official skiing association –IASS). In 1932, there were still no ski lifts in Bretaye, and most lessons were given on the site of the former golf course, behind the Palace. Classes could consist of more than fifty people. Sometimes, by the time the last student finished fixing his skis, the lesson was over. Half-day group courses were billed at five francs per person, or fifteen francs for the week. Private lessons cost six francs an hour, around a third of the price of an overnight stay at the Palace, or one and a half times the price of a “sport ticket” for the Villars-Les Bouquetins train. These proportions have hardly changed since then.
The tourists, mainly English and French, stayed with their families in the luxurious hotels on the plateau, and stayed for a month or two, sometimes the whole season… It was therefore not uncommon to see an instructor staying for the entire season with the same family.
The ultimate goal of the ski lessons was the ascent to Chamossaire from the train station at Les Bouquetins. “We used to go up with English people,” explains instructor Jean-Louis Chable, “on sealskins for 10 francs per ascent. As some of them didn’t know how to ski well, we’d leave them the skins for the descent. By the time we could do two ascents, we had earned our day.”
