Shribman: What happened to the ‘snows of yesteryear’?

Our views of winter are altering and, with them, our view of skiing is under transformation. (Getty Images)

The French citizens who have shaped the ski world include Jean-Claude Killy, Marielle and Christine Goitschel, and Émile Allais. But the one whose legacy concerns us the most is the 15th century French poet Francois Villon. He was the one who asked where were the snows of yesteryear.

Throughout New England the snows of yesteryear are part of the region’s folklore. None of us remembers the Great Snow of 1717 or the Blizzard of 1888, but the great storms of 1977, 1993, 1997 and 2003 are well within contemporary memory. More recently, the storms of 2013 and 2015 remain vivid in the region’s consciousness.

Indeed, snow is part of New England’s identity. Every anthology of Maine writing includes excerpts from snow-encrusted memoirs. Few political reports from the first-in-the-nation presidential primary omit some reference to White House contenders trudging through the “snows of New Hampshire.” The haunting strains of one of Dartmouth College’s most poignant anthems speaks of “long white afternoons,” and another of the college’s songs speaks of the “snow drifts deep along the road.” The fictional town of Pine Tree, Vermont, is the setting for the classic 1954 film “White Christmas.” No student in New England can escape middle school without being exposed to a poem that speaks of stopping by the woods on a snowy evening. For gosh sakes, our most famous poet’s last name was Frost. 

But, truth to tell, we know — we read this, we experience this — that the winter sport of skiing is in danger. We may dream of a White Christmas, but they are more of memory than of the current moment. The woods may be lovely, dark and deep but increasingly they are brown, not white. 

A set of environmental scientists led by the University of New Hampshire’s Alexandra Contosta begins its second paragraph of a 2019 scholarly study with this bit of understatement: “Sub-zero air temperatures and deep snow cover are as important to the region’s economy as they are to its ecosystem functions.” The study examines the “growing awareness of the importance of the winter season to forest ecosystems and surrounding communities” and demonstrates that “cold and snow covered conditions have generally decreased over the past 100 years.”

This we know, and we know it all too well.

Where are the snows of yesteryear? In my memory they are in the late-1960s, when Christmas vacation was a snow-packed winter festival; when Carroll County, New Hampshire, seemed synonymous with the phrase “snow country”; when Carroll Reed’s North Conway ski-and-fashion store was the ne plus ultra of the New England ski culture; when the clang of chains along Route 16 was the soundtrack of winter; and when ski people worried about the “January thaw” because there was plentiful snow and ice to flaw. 

Now, not so much.

Sure, there are massive dumps in our region, one even on April Fool’s Day (1997). And there hasn’t been a major ski area closure in years in New England — and the most prominent one, the shuttering of Saddleback, was followed five years later by a joyous renaissance that set all of sporting Maine alight. 

But the independent, nonprofit Climate Central has scary news for us all. Winter is generally the fastest-warming season, and the Northeastern and Great Lakes states are the regions most severely affected. Of the five top-warming winters in the last century, two were in New England:  Burlington, Vt. (7.1 F) and  Concord, N.H. (6.0 F).

All this means that our views of winter are altering and, with them, our view of skiing is under transformation. It is not only an issue of recreation but an economic issue as well. According to a 2018 study by the nonprofit Protect Our Winters, skiing accounts for nearly 200,000 jobs nationwide, translating into about $7 billion in wages, with an impact of more than $11 billion in the American economy. 

To address the crisis, ski areas will require more snowmaking — but the conditions for snowmaking will be less reliable and, even with technology-fed boosts in snowmaking capability, the new techniques may not be able to keep up with the climate challenges. Skiers will require more flexibility in selecting their venues, and their holiday times — when venues and high-snow periods will be fewer, because most projections call for shorter winters. It is a conundrum with which ski area operators are wrestling — and which thus far has left them frustrated. Professor Contosta speculates that as many as 85 percent of ski areas in New England and Quebec may not survive the end of the century. 

No one wants that result. And scientists are hard at work trying to understand these alterations in the region’s climate. A group of researchers is looking at the phenomenon of  “whiplash,” frequent cycles of thawing and refreezing. And in Canada, a former ski area, Alberta’s Fortress Mountain, has been transformed into a study area to measure the physics of climate change in the mountains. With 35 hydrometric stations packed with sensors on Fortress Mountain and beyond, in the Kananaskis region of the province, these researchers are doing snow surveys and measuring changes in the tree line and observing avalanches.

It is all part of an effort to understand winter as part of a giant offensive to save it. 

In the old days, there were bumper stickers that urged us to “Think Snow.” Today, we might do better to think about ways to address climate change and to assure not only the survival of our winter sport but also the survival of our planet. But we need to do more than think — we need to act.