John Fripp

Johnny’s best stories start after WWII

In fact, his best stories start with Joe Ryan, the irascible, bold, perpetually controversial owner of Quebec’s Mont Tremblant. In 1945, Ryan got Canada’s ski world — of which he was pretty much king — all atwitter with his appointment of Johnny Fripp as Tremblant’s ski school director.

Fripp, by now a rough, fit, extremely fast-skiing World War II vet was less flashy than any other ski school director the irascible Ryan had ever hired. More weirdly, Fripp was Canadian. No Canuck had ever been handed the privilege of helming North America’s leading-edge ski school. It was a job strictly reserved for showy, God-like, touqueless Europeans—also known as Austrian disciples of the revered Hannes Schneider.

Yet there was Ryan causing chins to wag by appointing Fripp fresh from the RCAF to lead his eight-man ski school—a school known as much for its celebrities and parties as it was for its teaching and technique. When interviewed 65 years later, in 2011, Fripp credited his much-talked-about hiring squarely on the shoulders of Blanche Rebichka.

The bush-whacking, pole-riding Quebec Kandahar  

Fripp was born in Ottawa February 11, 1921. As a teen he’d hop a city street car, pay his five cents to ride to the end of the line, then tramp his way across farmers’ fields for five miles to the foot of Dome Hill. There he’d climb up through the mapled Canadian bush for about 300 vertical feet, point his skis downward.. and schuss. By age 17 Fripp had won—and given back—the 1938 Journal Trophy in the Gatineau Ski Zone Championships, and he’d headed south of the border for the US Eastern Olympic tryouts to place third place on the blazing heels of bullet Dick Durrance. “I still have those trophies,” said Fripp in 2011. “Sterling silver goblets—they’re the only trophies I’ve ever kept.”

But it was on a train bound for Mont Tremblant and the fabled Quebec Kandahar that his ski racing cylinders really got firing. In the 1939 Canadian Ski Year Book, H.P. Douglas described the Quebec Kandahar race as “unquestionably the wildest, toughest, bush-whacking, pole-riding adventure ever held.” The race was so treacherous in its early years, author W. Ball remarked it “was considered a good way of collecting insurance!” (Canadian Ski Year Book, 1938).

John Fripp at Tremblant in 1945. CSHFM Collection.

The years after Tremblant

Looking back, it was likely Fripp’s speed on snow that impressed Joe Ryan in ‘45 when he was searching for a new director to replace Beno (and Blanche) Rebichka. Fripp helmed the Tremblant school for a couple of years, then married and moved out of the professional ski world to raise his family.

Last interviewed in 2011 by Lori Knowles for Skiing History, Fripp was living with his second wife Elizabeth, with whom he raised daughter Renée. When he wasn’t skiing, racing, coaching or teaching skiing, John was running his insurance and realty company, H.D. Fripp & Son. He raised four sons with his first wife Virginia, two of which competed in the 1970s on the Canadian men’s ski jumping team.

While working in real estate and insurance, John Fripp kept up his on-snow accomplishments. He was a director of the Canadian Amateur Ski Association, a member of the International Competition Committee, a coach of the Canadian FIS men’s ski team, a constant source for the Canadian Ski Museum, a volunteer and supporter of the Ottawa Ski Club, and a Canadian Ski Hall of Fame inductee in 1988. All that, and a great story-teller, too.  

John Fripp in 2007 with pioneering Canadian downhill ski champions Rhona and Rhoda Wurtele. CSHFM Collection.