The hills were small, but local enthusiasm was high at the opening of Rainbow Ridge Ski Resort in Bracebridge in 1963. But despite general confidence the town would become a Muskoka ski centre, Rainbow Ridge couldn’t deliver the much-desired pot of winter tourism gold

“Ontario’s ‘Fun Valley’ for sports in the years prior to the Second World War, Muskoka is actively engaged in reviving this claim through the development of increasing modern ski resorts,” reported the Ontario Travel News on January 18, 1962.
In an evergreen quest, Muskoka was then trying to achieve year-round tourism. Huntsville had led the way with the opening of Hidden Valley Ski Club during the profitable week before Christmas, 1961. Huntsville resident Bill Waterhouse and Toronto partners Ed Seagram and Graham Brown invested a then hefty $150,000 in the venture whose 350-foot main hill sported a new double chairlift. Runs from the top of the lift stretched 2,000 to 3,000 feet.
But Hidden Valley was hardly the only ski establishment in “Fun Valley” at the start of the ’60s. Huntsville’s Tally-Ho Inn invested $80,000 in a hill, chalet and fancy new French poma lift in its Winter Park. Slopes and tows were operating at Gravenhurst’s Muskoka Sands (which also featured a new main lodge and Olympic-sized pool), at the venerable Limberlost and Cedar Grove lodges in Huntsville, and at the Ski Jump Inn in Port Sydney. The Britannia Hotel on Lake of Bays had hosted skiers at its hill since 1955.
But the skiing at the Britannia ended long before the hotel closed and was sold in 1973. In fact, despite Muskoka’s reputation for “steady snow conditions and good winter weather,” according to the Travel News, all the ski businesses eventually failed except for Hidden Valley, including Bracebridge’s entry into the winter tourism market — Rainbow Ridge Ski Resort.
Rainbow Ridge’s ski lodge is now the central section of the Bracebridge Villa retirement residence, located about one kilometre west of Bracebridge on Muskoka Road 118. But when Rainbow Ridge owner Finlay Munro announced plans for the new ski resort on March 15, 1962, it was front-page news in the Bracebridge Herald-Gazette. The accompanying editorial confidentially predicted, “Gradually, and in a solid way, Muskoka is moving into the position of becoming established as one of Ontario’s principal winter resorts.”
With plans to open for the 1962-63 ski season, Munro bought property known locally as Rainbow Hills — a ridge running north from the Muskoka River to Beaver Creek and to Muskoka Road 118. Skiers in a local club, who walked or skied in from the highway, had long used the 200-foot-high hills. Property owner Mel Goltz and his tractor pulled skiers up the hill, and a shack with a wood stove at the bottom of the hill provided warmth and a bit of shelter.
Munro’s vision for his resort included a hotel by Trillium Hotels Ltd., and an 80-foot by 30-foot, two-storey chalet with 80-by-24-foot deck, restaurant, lounge and dance floor on the top floor, and common room, ski patrol room and gift shop downstairs. A 45-foot-high granite fireplace with three hearths, two back-to-back, soared through both floors. Outdoors, T-bar lifts would take skiers up the hill to two novice, one intermediate and two expert runs, each 1,200 to 2,500 feet long. Parking was optimistically planned for 400 cars.
One of Munro’s twin sons, Brian, then 23, was named manager of the chalet, known later as Muskoka Chalet. Munro hired local skier Stan Knowles to operate the ski school. “Bracebridge will now take its place alongside the other widely publicized ski resorts in the province,” reported the Herald-Gazette as construction began.
The grand debut of Rainbow Ridge on January 26, 1963, was attended by most of the town and officially opened by provincial treasurer James Allan. Also among the revellers were local MPP Robert Boyer, Bracebridge mayor George Parlett and George Crichton of the Muskoka Tourist Association. The night ended with a torchlight ski display created by Knowles featuring 15 members of the ski patrol gliding in patterns down the hill carrying magnesium flares. At the dance and dinner afterwards, people sensed the start of wintertime prosperity for Bracebridge.
The resort’s first season was a success. Saturday night dances were popular, and the ski school was crowded with students from Bracebridge Public School and neighbouring township schools. Runs acquired names like Rainbow’s End and Spectrum. Plans for the second season included landing strips for fly-in skiers, a toboggan hill, lighting and stereo music on the slopes, a second T-bar and bunkhouses for cheap accommodation. But the landing strips, like the Trillium hotel, never materialized as the longed for influx of skiers from Toronto bypassed Bracebridge for the higher drops and longer runs at Hidden Valley or the luxuries at the Muskoka Sands.
The second season inaugurated a Rainbow Ridge tradition of hosting ski meets, starting with the all-Ontario open Invitational Slalom, and the Canadian Ski Instructors’ Alliance held its annual ski school for instructors. Snowshoes could be rented, and an ahead-of-its-time mid-week ski package let skiers schuss at five Muskoka ski resorts for $10.
Former Bracebridge town clerk and Bracebridge history archivist Ken Veitch skied at Rainbow Ridge with wife Sharon when they were dating. Quoting the book A Good Town Continues by Robert Boyer, Veitch said that by 1971, the Bracebridge Ski Club was operating Rainbow Ridge.
“Sometime before that, Finlay Munro’s business failed and he died in 1971,” he noted. In 1974, Rainbow Ridge was sold to Otto Bertinik, owner of The Lobster Trap restaurant in Toronto. Only four years later, the struggling resort, hampered by now uncertain snow conditions, was again sold to three couples including Alex and Margaret Clark who owned the Wells Motel (now Bellwood Motel) on Manitoba Street in Bracebridge; Ray and Ursula Johns of Lofty Pines, just north of Bracebridge, and a British couple who came to Canada to be part-owners of Rainbow Ridge.
Goltz, who built the Rainbow Ridge chalet’s roof and worked at the resort on and off over the years, watched the business rise and later fall.
“It came on hard times,” he said. “Frank Miller owned it for a while and sold it. Later, several people ran it.”
Valerie Sgiarovello was the company’s secretary during the last two years of business, working for the three couples who owned the failing resort.
“I left before they actually closed, but not long before,” she recalls. “It was obvious what was happening. My training was in social work, but I got this job, and it was good. I was working in suicide prevention and was exhausted. The English couple basically ran the company because the Clarks were busy with the Wells Motel and were almost silent partners. Mr. Johns and his wife did a lot of the snow work and maintenance to keep the place going.”
Sgiarovello remembers lots of children and teenagers using Rainbow Ridge’s hills, but adults looked for bigger slopes.
“I think the business wasn’t doing well enough to support three owners and staff,” she said. “Everybody ended up being very angry at each other. Everybody’s lives were devastated by what happened. All the owners lost money when they sold the resort.”
In 1981, Ernie Austin bought the property and expanded it into retirement residence Bracebridge Villa. The Villa was full soon after opening, and has expanded through the years to become one of the town’s most successful businesses. After the sale of Rainbow Ridge, all plans to turn Bracebridge into a Muskoka ski centre came to an end.
“I think it is much better as a retirement residence than a ski lodge,” said Sgiarovello. “I don’t think the ski hills ever attracted enough people.”