Ski Jumping - Seattle Ice Arena - 1955

Finally back to posting some of my parents old photos. These are some photos of an indoor (mostly) ski jump event that took place November 3-4 1955 at the Seattle Ice Arena. My dad was a jumper but it looks like for this event he was manning the camera. I will share some pictures of the hill first and then some of the jumpers that took part in this event. Follow along as I share the pictures he took and recount some of the history, as I know it, of this event.


The Hill

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With the window removed the in-run begins it descent into the arena. Just being up there on that scaffold would scare me quite a bit let alone skiing down it into the building.

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A look down the in-run to the jump and the landing zone beyond. I hope you can excuse some of the blurry shots and out of frame subjects. I believe this was early on in my dad's photographic career and I'm not sure what kind of equipment he was using.

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A view from the jump. Watch your head?

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Building the landing zone.

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Preparing the landing zone.

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And a last shot of the outside with my dad's Jeep Willys in the shot.

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The Jumpers

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Olav Ulland

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Ragnar Ulland - I remember my dad talking about the Ulland's when I was a kid.

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Kjell Bakke - The old jump hill in Leavenworth WA carries his name.

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Rolf Helle - Early X Games?

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I was told Bob Cram was kind of the MC and comedian of the event.

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Janette Burr providing a little down hill action.

And to finish things off a collection of unknown jumpers.
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Click images for larger view

Please feel free to make comments or ask me any questions about this post.

Photos taken by my dad with unknown equipment. I did some minor Lightroom post processing.

Thanks for looking and enjoy your day!



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Wild to do that indoors.

My dad once told me that during the Nazi occupation of Norway when he was a teenager he once did a 30-meter ski jump on a dare, earning a bar of chocolate for doing so.

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It was kind of crazy how popular it was in the 50's. My dad was traveling around the Pacific Northwest to meets all the time.

The Ullands my dad jumped with were of Norwegian descent. Norway definitely produced some good ski jumpers.

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I love when you share your father's ski jumping antics.
The scaffolding, that set up, health and safety nowadays would have a conniption and never let it happen.
Brilliant to see these, so thank you for sharing with us.

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You're welcome! It was definitely a different time.

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Can I possibly try this 😊 That was an adventure

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It's not as popular as it once was but is still around. Not sure where though and probably mostly outside.

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It looks super-vintage compared to the contemporary ski jumping :))

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Yeah, it's a little different. 😉

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