Chic Scott was born in Calgary in 1945 and is a fourth generation Albertan and a third generation Calgarian. The Scott family has been very active organizing amateur sport over the years. Charles F. Scott (Chic’s father) was Calgary Sportsman of the Year in 1971 and was elected to the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame in 1974.
Chic was very active as a golfer in his youth and represented Alberta at the Canadian Junior Golf Championship in 1961. However, in 1962 he took up mountain climbing and skiing and these two passions have dominated his life ever since. He was part of the first wave of homegrown Canadian climbers who were to earn their place in this British and European dominated sport.
The following pages illustrate some
highlights and accomplishments of his career:
Wrote ‘Ski Trails in the Canadian Rockies’ a guidebook to Nordic backcountry skiing.
Ran unsuccessfully for Canmore town council.
Founded the Company of Canadian Mountain Guides Ltd. a cooperative venture by members of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides for the purpose of marketing mountain guiding.
Guided the Canadian Rockies Hut-to-Hut Ski Traverse, from Lake O’Hara to Spray Lake.
Wrote ‘Summits and Icefields’ a ski mountaineer's guidebook to the Canadian Rockies and the Columbia Mountains.
Elected an honorary member of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.
Was one of the founders of the John Lauchlan award.
Elected an honorary member of the Calgary Mountain Club.
Wrote ‘Pushing the Limits, the Story of Canadian Mountaineering’.
Elected an honorary member of The Alpine Club of Canada.
"Pushing the Limits" received the J. Monroe Thorington Award for the best recent book on mountain history and the Canadian Rockies Award for the best book on the Rocky Mountains at the Banff Mountain Book Festival.
Received the Bill March Summit of Excellence Award at the Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival for lifetime contribution to the mountain community.
Toured the United Kingdom presenting slide shows on Canadian mountaineering at the Bretton Hall International Mountain Book Festival, the Dundee Mountain Film Festival and the Kendal Mountain Film Festival.
At the Alberta Book Awards ‘Pushing the Limits’ received the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non fiction and the Trade Book of the Year Award.
Toured the United Kingdom for a second time presenting lectures on Canadian climbing and skiing at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival and The Alpine Club in London.
Co-authored The Yam, 50 Years of Climbing on Yamnuska with Dave Dornian and Ben Gadd. The book won the award for the best work on the Rocky Mountains at the Banff Mountain Book Festival.
Toured the United Kingdom for a third time presenting lectures on Canadian climbing and skiing at The Alpine Club Canada Symposium and at the World Ski Mountaineering Symposium organized by The Eagles Ski Club.
Served on the jury at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival.
Toured western USA presenting lectures for Neptune Mountaineering (Boulder CO), the American Alpine Club (Bishop CA), The Mountaineers (Seattle WA) and (Tacoma (WA).
Gave a presentation on Canadian climbing and backcountry skiing for the Canadian Tourism Commission at the Adventure Travel and Sports Show in London, England.
Powder Pioneers, Ski Stories from the Canadian Rockies and Columbia Mountains was published.
Gave a presentation on ‘Filming the Eiger Sanction’ at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.
Gave a presentation on ‘Extreme Ski Adventure in Western Canada’ at the Whistler World Backcountry Freeride Jam.
Gave presentations on ‘Filming the Eiger Sanction’ at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival and the Dundee Mountain Film Festival. Also gave four presentations on Canadian mountain climbing history to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dunfermline and Edinburgh).
Gave a presentation on ‘Filming the Eiger Sanction’ at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival.
Won the award for the best short slide show at the annual Night of Lies gathering.
Wrote and published Deep Powder and Steep Rock, the Life of Mountain Guide Hans Gmoser.
Deep Powder and Steep Rock was short listed for the Boardman Tasker Mountain Writing Award.
Chic has two university degrees, A BSc (Zoology and Chemistry, 1969) and a BEd (1981). After many years of living and climbing in France and Switzerland he is bilingual.
Although he has worked at a number of jobs over the years to maintain his adventurous lifestyle, he made a major committment between 1975 and 1988 when he worked as a lab instructor and technician in the Biology Department at the University of Calgary.
Chic has written extensively of his adventures and has published about 100 magazine articles during his career. During almost 50 years of skiing, climbing and guiding he has an almost perfect safety record having been involved in only one avalanche and one climbing accident (a broken leg).
Chic now lives in Banff, Alberta, where he makes his living writing mountain books and articles and giving presentations.