DAVID HARKLEY INTO THE FOG
If you worked in the ski industry in the West anytime over the past 37 years, you’d be hardpressed to meet anyone who loved the business of skiing and its people more than David Harkley.
After an impressive career that began in 1984, Ski Canada’s Whistler/Pemberton-based Western Account Manager and ambassador-at-large called it a career and retired in the spring. Advertising sales aside, it’s David’s unofficial role as Ski Canada’s emissary to the West that will be most missed.
Harkley landed in the ski business honestly. His love of the outdoors, skiing as well as fishing and hunting were inevitable. He grew up working in the family’s Harkley and Haywood Sporting Goods store in Vancouver that was started by his grandfather. As a kid he saw his dad breathe life into cabins up on Vancouver’s North Shore ski hills, and by the time high school rolled around Harkley’s passion for skiing and the associated shenanigans and irresistible social circles were well rooted. He’d find his way to the lightboard rendezvous on Whistler Mountain most weekends.
In 1984, media giant Maclean-Hunter, Ski Canada’s owner at the time, hired a somewhat unlikely Harkley to squeeze advertising dollars out of ski resorts in Western Canada. Other than selling fishing rods and ammunition in the family store, he’d never held a proper job. Furthermore, the painful recession of the early ’80s was particularly acute for ski areas in the West—yet Harkley managed to somehow sell his way out of it. His genuine interest in the mountains and the people behind their operations overcame any shortfall in the polished skills of persuasion. Harkley’s approach to selling was more Red Green than Dale Carnegie.
Mike Duggan, responsible for Silver Star Mountain’s marketing for almost 20 years, recalls Harkley’s annual summer visit. “We’d have our budget and plans for next season well laid out. And then David would roll into town on his usual trip. We’d visit and he’d just want to know about everything that was going on and what we were working toward. And then, like a maskless thief, he’d somehow walk away with half my budget.”
Duggan’s authentic fondness for a guy who sold him print advertising between laps in Okanagan powder is shared nearly universally with other marketing types from ski operations across the West. Whistler’s former VP of Marketing Stuart Rempel personally accompanied Harkley one summer up into Whistler’s back bowls in an attempt to retrieve a pair of skis he’d lost the previous winter when an inbounds slide took Harkley for a frightening ride. When the Vancouver papers and CBC later called looking for dramatic details, Harkley protected his client by playing down the event.
On the other hand, when a resort or a humble ski town had something to celebrate and called the media for support, Harkley could always be counted on. His arrival would be marked with the deafening clatter of his signature (and barely muffled) Land Cruiser and oftentimes an introduction, since he would drag along someone from the industry or another resort. He was as enthusiastic about connecting strangers from different mountains that he felt “should know each other” as he was the event or promotion.
Harkley’s four-decade span selling the ski industry amounted to a journey of personally connecting with others who made skiing and ski areas their life’s work. He hated to miss a well-organized special event. Or a bad one, for that matter. As long as the bar was open and the usual cast of ski hill characters was in attendance, Harkley could be counted on to wave the Ski Canada flag.
As was often the case, Harkley was an enthusiastic participant in the events and festivities but would sometimes take the brunt of the night’s humour. Through the course of the post-race awards celebration and after-party in Tod Mountain’s original Burfield Lodge, Harkley found himself abandoned and inverted, on the Burfield’s Wagon Wheel that hung from the ceiling in front of the bar. If you wore your cowboy boots (it was 1987 and Harkley wouldn’t have been caught dead at après without them), your friends could help you hook your heels into the wheel and hang upside down for a traditional Burfield shooter. Unless you had super-human core strength, self-rescue was impossible.
Then there was spring of 1992 at Mount Washington’s Tequila Cup event. Former national ski team member Chris Kent had taken the top spot on the podium and, primed with an unspeakable supply from the sponsoring Jose Cuervo, the after-party back in the day lodge was in a full lather. At this point in the night, Mount Washington’s management team was long gone and had ordered the road closed. It was safe to say that nobody left at the top would be driving anywhere. As the last standing member of the media that evening, Harkley had been enjoying some celebrity status until an overserved local latched onto him as his new best friend. Harkley was abandoned to fend for himself. Multiple relocation strategies proved of no use, so in a rare defensive moment Harkley used insider’s knowledge of an aquarium nearby and surprised his new friend with a “goldfish shooter.” Harkley’s new pal, unwilling to take their relationship to the next level, abruptly ended their friendly, fishy hookup.
So, yes, there’s at least one person who doesn’t think much of David Harkley. But the folks on the business end of the skiing community sing his praises and wish him well. Thirty-seven years is an extraordinary career anywhere. Well done, Harkley. See you at the lightboard.
_CHRISTOPHER CARTER