Pushing the Limits: The Legacy - “Climbing Pioneers of Yamnuska”

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The Whyte Museum celebrates International Mountain Day, December 11th, 202, with the Pushing The Limits legacy project kicking off with the online film "Climbing Pioneers Of Yamnuska," starring Hans Gmoser, Leo Grillmair, Franz Dopf, Brian Greenwood, Don Vockeroth, Dick Lofthouse and Urs Kallen. 

In 1996 and 1997 while researching for his book Pushing the Limits, Banff-based historian Chic Scott videotaped 84 interviews across Canada with the leading climbers of the era about their pursuits here in the great Canadian mountain ranges and also their climbs around the world. For 25 years those interviews were safely stored in the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, Alberta. Through recent efforts of the Whyte Museum Archives, they have been digitized and revitalized. These digitized interviews will be incorporated into a multimedia project entitled Pushing the Limits: The Legacy which will launch in various stages over the next several years.

Three main components comprise the legacy project. Digitized raw interviews serve as the foundation of the legacy project, which will eventually be made available to the general public through the Whyte Archives website. Working with Canmore filmmaker Glen Crawford, 11 of the best interviews will be selected and edited with supporting archival photos. These enhanced interviews will also be made available online. Selected digitized interviews will culminate in a series of several theme-based films relating to Canadian mountaineering which will launch over the next several years.

The film will premiere online on December 11th, 2021 - International Mountain Day - at whyte.org/events.

Climbing Pioneers of Yamnuska is about Iyamnathka, the “flat-faced mountain” on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, overlooking the prairies, which has been sacred to the Stoney People for millennia. More recently, the mountain, now known as Yamnuska, has become special to thousands of rock climbers. Since the early fifties many climbing routes have been established up the south face. Using interviews videotaped by Chic Scott in the 1990s, this film tells the story of those climbing pioneers and their adventures — Leo Grillmair, Hans Gmoser, Franz Dopf, Brian Greenwood, Don Vockeroth, Dick Lofthouse and Urs Kallen. This film was generously sponsored by Dr. Bill Hanlon and Lake Louise Ski Resort.

"I am so pleased to see that these interviews that I recorded so long ago will now be available to the public online — they are a wonderful window on a bygone era,” said Scott. “There are several interviews with men in their 90s while the youngest climbers interviewed are in their 30s. There are interviews with men and women from British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec — ice climbers, alpinists, Himalayan climbers and sport climbers. The interviews are a snapshot of climbing as it was in the 1990s. It is now a great treasure and irreplaceable. This interview project was originally sponsored by Hans Gmoser who saw the potential value of it down the road. This is his legacy too." - Chic Scott