Bow Hut - History

History

The original Bow Hut was built in 1968 by a group led by Peter Fuhrmann, who later became president of the Alpine Club of Canada from 1984 to 1988, and was funded by Peter and Catharine Whyte. The construction was done mostly by members of the Alpine Club and the Calgary Ski Club. The location of the hut, near Bow Glacier, was chosen to assist ski tourers and mountaineers entering the Wapta Icefield via Bow Lake. The old hut saw severe overuse, with up to 7,000 people a year using a building that only slept 14 people at a time. By the 1980s it was in a state of serious disrepair and surrounded by contamination from the outhouses, causing many people to refer to it as Bow Ghetto. In 1989 a new hut was built under the direction of Mike Mortimer, Chairman of the Huts Committee of the Alpine Club of Canada and later President from 1994 to 2001. Money for the facility was primarily provided by the Calgary and Edmonton Sections of the Alpine Club. The new facility is much larger than the previous one, with much better cooking, and waste disposal facilities; and with sleeping areas separated from the rest of the hut to accommodate a number of different groups at a time.