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New Railway Museum exhibit highlights Swiss mountain guides

The Revelstoke Railway Museum is opening a new exhibit highlighting the vital role Swiss guides played in shaping mountain culture in western Canada, and you're invited to the opening event.
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Swiss guides leading party on Illecillewaet Glacier BC ca. 1900. The image is part of a new exhibit featuring the history of Swiss guides in western Canada that will open at the Revelstoke Railway Museum on Feb. 4.

The Revelstoke Railway Museum is opening a new exhibit highlighting the vital role Swiss guides played in shaping mountain culture in western Canada, and you're invited to the opening event.

The opening reception takes place on Friday, Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Revelstoke Railway Museum.

The exhibit entitled, Swiss Guides: Shaping Mountain Culture in Western Canada, explores the history of Swiss guides' involvement and influence on the region since they arrived at the turn of the 20th Century, and their continuing, pervasive effects on the fabric of modern mountain life here.

"This exhibition illustrates the remarkable history of Swiss mountain guides in the Canadian Rocky and Columbia Mountains. Through their groundbreaking performances in mountain guiding, mountain rescuing, heli-skiing and skiing they significantly contributed to a mountain culture that Canada is widely associated with today," states the Revelstoke Railway Museum in a media release.

The exhibit explores the Canadian Pacific Railway's efforts to foster tourism in the early 1900s, including hiring Swiss guides as part of the effort.

The first half of that century is portrayed as the Golden Age of mountaineering.

The show also explores a second wave of younger Swiss guides who arrived in the 1950s and '60s, and tells of their involvement in developing familiar local institutions such as mountain rescue, avalanche research, heli-skiing and skiing.

Revelstoke Railway Museum executive director Jennifer Dunkerson says the exhibit shows not only the influence the guides had in the high alpine, but they also helped show Canadians new ways of "enjoying the mountains and appreciating them for what they are."

The museum says the show will appeal to many. "Aimed towards a broad audience and a wide age range, this exhibit will particularly appeal to those interested in skiing, mountaineering, the outdoor environment, Swiss-Canadian Relations, and tourism."

The travelling exhibit is co-presented by the Revelstoke Railway Museum and the Consulate General of Switzerland Vancouver.

The museum also extends local thanks to Rene Hueppi of Mulvehill Creek Wilderness Inn and Wedding Chapel for helping bring the exhibit to Revelstoke.

To learn more about the exhibit, see the story in the Feb. 2 print edition of the Revelstoke Times Review.

The exhibit also features a 58-page PDF brochure which can be viewed by clicking here.

The exhibit continues until Feb. 26, 2011.