GREENWOOD — The Ski Museum of Maine will set up shop inside the main lodge of Mt. Abram Ski Area on Sunday, Dec. 28, to show off ski memorabilia and to give fireside chat presentations, Vice President Wende Gray said.
Gray said the museum has hosted a series of “fireside chats” at historical societies, ski clubs and “anywhere looking for some ski-related programming.”
“The fireside chats are hourlong presentations using PowerPoint or slide shows that one of our board members, Scott Andrews, puts together,” Gray said. “Basically, they’re about different topics of the heritage and history of skiing in Maine. Scott is a member of our board, but he’s also our historian and researcher and made most of the presentations.”
The chat that will be presented to Mt. Abram is called “Maine’s Nordic Skiing Heritage: 1870 to Present,” Gray said. “It’s a good one for people interested in skiing to attend. We’re going to cover 140 years of skiing in Maine. We’re also going to have a map of Oxford County showing all of the significant locations of things that happened in the ski world.”
The event is free to the public, Gray said, though the Ski Museum of Maine will accept donations.
“Any money we make is going towards a satellite museum that we’re hoping to build on Main Street in Bethel,” Gray said. “We’re really in full fundraising mode for that satellite location. Most of all, we’re hoping to build awareness and engage the skiers in Oxford County.”
She said anyone who is a longtime Mt. Abram skier and wants to showcase their memorabilia is welcome to bring it to the main lodge on Dec. 28.
“We’re also inviting people to donate any of their old memorabilia that they don’t want anymore,” Gray said. “What we’ve found is that a lot of parents and grandparents are leaving the younger generation with their old ski memorabilia, and the children are off-loading it at the Salvation Army or at the dump. We’re losing a lot of history this way.”
According to its website, the Ski Museum of Maine in Kingfield was founded in 1995 and is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that celebrates and preserves the history and heritage of Maine skiing.
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