He served as president of both the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG) and the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC). He was a member of the first team of Canadians (with British and Indian nationals) to summit a Himalayan peak, the west (lower) summit of Swargarohini, in 1974.
But the accomplishment Peter Fuhrmann will most likely and most reverently be remembered for was his lead role in the development of Parks Canada’s elite public safety and mountain rescue team.
Those accomplishments and many more, including receiving the 2010 Summit of Excellence Award, says Canmore writer and historian Bob Sandford, make Fuhrmann unquestionably deserving of a biography.
“Peter Fuhrmann is an icon of Canadian mountain culture,” Sandford said. “Throughout many struggles and against a backdrop of terrible tragedy in his personal life, he never lost his sense of humour and love of mountain place. If anyone in this country deserved a biography, I felt, it was him.”
Con Bravura: The Remarkable Mountaineering Life of Peter Fuhrmann, was published by the ACC earlier this year. The title, Sandford explained, pays tribute to both his and Fuhrmann’s love of opera.
“Because of Peter, I was able to see Mozart’s great Don Giovanni in the same Prague church in which it was first performed in 1787,” Sandford said. “It was therefore quite logical to see Peter Fuhrmann’s life unfold as if it were an opera – tragic at first, but through many unexpected turns, triumphant at the end. I consider his biography a curtain call.”
Fuhrmann was born into a life of lavish circumstance in 1933, in Breslau, Germany - not in Poland as it is today. His grandfather was a wealthy urban planner and architect, as was his father. Fuhrmann grew up in a palace where 36 resident and visiting relatives each enjoyed luxurious suites.
The Second World War changed that. At eight, Fuhrmann and his grandparents fled Breslau to Leipzig and then Dresden, where they survived the 1945 firebombing that killed at least 23,000 people. Despite hiding in a root cellar, they were marched back to Breslau, where his uncles were shot and his aunt committed suicide. By the time Fuhrmann was reunited with his parents after two years of harsh living, he was so sick he nearly lost a leg to infection.
“Most people would not have lived through what he went through as a young refugee in Russian captivity at the end of the war,” Sandford said. “Peter is remarkable in that he does not dwell on such matters; he doesn’t complain. He just gets things done.”
After high school, Fuhrmann studied business and worked for Shell Oil. In 1955, he immigrated to Canada, crossing the Atlantic by ship with a young climber named Hans Kahl. Arriving in Edmonton by train, they found work picking berries. Aching for mountains, they spent their first night in Banff sleeping on a park bench at Bow Falls. A fortunate encounter with the Department of Public Works personnel manager secured them both surveying jobs.
Before long Kahl earned his mountain guide’s licence through Walter Perren, a Swiss-trained guide who created Canada’s national park mountain rescue program. In 1960, Fuhrmann earned his licence, assisting Perren with a rescue on Castle Mountain’s Eisenhower Tower in the process. When fellow mountain guide Hans Gmoser led the creation of the ACMG in 1963, Fuhrmann served as president until 1969.
Most significantly, he helped ensure the association was recognized as a serious, competent group of professionals at a time when there were no government or legal restrictions on who might offer guiding services.
Tragically, Perren died of leukemia in 1967 and Fuhrmann became alpine specialist for Banff, Yoho and Kootenay national parks, as well as parks in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Nunavut and the B.C. Coast. Jasper mountain guide Willie Pfisterer assumed the equivalent positon for Jasper, Mount Revelstoke, Glacier and Waterton parks, and others further afield.
In 1968, with Banff pilot Jim Davies, Fuhrmann introduced European helicopter rescue capabilities, right in downtown Banff. Through to 1991, Fuhrmann was instrumental in developing comprehensive training programs for the public safety wardens, ensuring that Canada’s rescue specialists performed at the highest international standards.
With the not-for-profit ACC, Fuhrmann spearheaded construction of early versions of the club’s popular Wapta Icefields huts. When Parks Canada considered demolishing the historic Swiss guide-built Abbot Pass Hut, Fuhrmann arranged for the ACC to assume management of the iconic structure. And, during a period when the ACC was on the verge of insolvency, Fuhrmann assumed the helm as president, restructuring the club to lead it toward the success it enjoys today.
It was during his tenure as the ACC’s vice-president of mountain culture, 1995 to 2007, that Sandford created the Summit Series of mountaineering biographies, launched in 2000 with a biography of Don Forest, written by Forest’s daughter, Kathy Calvert.
In addition to Con Bravura, Sandford has authored five Summit Series booklets, including biographies of Canada’s pre-eminent Wheeler family and mountain guides Hans Schwarz and Lloyd Gallagher.
Other authors have contributed to the series, including Zac Robinson and Chic Scott, now completing his second on upcoming 2014 Mountain Guides Ball patrons Mike and Heather Mortimer. Lynn Martel has written nine, most recently the life story of revered climber and artist Glen Boles.
Through creating the Summit Series, Sandford said he hoped to remember and celebrate contemporary figures for their significant contributions to Canadian mountain culture.
“I felt that by writing respectful biographies of the mountaineering legends it was my great pleasure to know, I was making it possible for others to know them also and, if only vicariously, to appreciate the extraordinary qualities of these people,” Sandford said.
“It has meant a great deal to me to be able affirm the fact that there are great Canadians in our midst and to help recognize them as such. We need to do more of that in Canada.”
To learn more or to purchase any of the Summit Series biographies, visit www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/product-category/books/summit-series/.
