The keys to Norquay have passed through the hands of several owners. The smaller, scrappier sibling of the Big Three had to work twice as hard—a shorter season, less snow, and imposed limits of a national park. By 1995, after a major expansion, the hill was in receivership. But this story starts decades earlier, in Italy, so let’s back up a bit…
It was 1975 when Kika and Hugo Grandi packed up their kids in Italy and set their sights on the Canadian Rockies. They had a dream to own a ski hill. When you talk to Kika today, ‘destiny’ crops up in conversation a fair bit—and you can see why. When they arrived in Banff, they missed their chance to put a deposit down on Norquay by a single day.
Fast forward through a parade of owners—George Encil in 1946, Eva and Walter Fisher in 1960, Bill and Carol Herron in 1968, Art Heinni in 1978, then Dave Morrison and Brewster’s in 1989.
The Herrons are the first owners I remember. They felt like my family’s good friends but likely most people skiing then felt the same way. The Herrons had three kids. Shelley was 4 when her folks bought the hill. She says her mom and dad were “very much in it together, every decision, every day.” To Shelley, the entire mountain was like her daycare; while her parents ran the hill, she had the run of the place: “Every lift operator and staff member knew who I was, and they all looked out for me.” It was a family affair: young Shelley put bumper tags on cars in the parking lot and sold alfalfa feed for the tourists to give the squirrels. “Dad figured tourists would feed them anyway,” she says, “so why not make it healthy food?”
One of her sweetest memories is one morning after a big snowfall when her dad came to wake her up for school, as he did every day, except this day he said, “Hey do you want to skip school and come ski the fresh powder with your old Dad?” She still calls it the best ski day ever. I have the exact same memory— my dad did the same for us. That’s the kind of place Norquay was.
By the mid 1990’s, after the Mystic Ridge expansion, the hill was in trouble and nearly got sold for parts. That’s when Kika Grandi—who’d missed her chance years earlier—finally got her shot. When Peter White showed up at her door asking her if she wanted to be part of this new era of ownership, she said yes, to keep the hill open.
It was a group effort. Marty von Neudegg facilitated the purchase in 1995, suggesting they offer $50,000 over the best bid. But about three weeks after the deal closed, just before Christmas, tragedy struck, and the lodge burnt down. Such bad luck had Kika wondering for a hot second if this was what she should be doing—then she showed up ready to work.
Kika’s vision included a lodge that had a nice cafe and places to socialize, to be used by families and ski clubs. With no lodge, at first, she turned a trailer in the parking lot into a café. Somehow, call it destiny, one Angelo Semplici, an Italian baker came into the mix, and together it became Kika’s Café serving panettone, tiramisu, homemade bread and pizza and a good cappuccino and folks would come up from town to enjoy even if they weren’t planning to ski. Kika’s Café on the upper floor of the current lodge is the living legacy of her intention to make Norquay feel like home and it eventually became the ‘home room’ for Banff Alpine Racers and an events spot. It’s something she’s still very proud of.
I knew Kika because of her kids Vania, Astrid and Thomas who were all ski racers. When I ran into her one day at Norquay shortly after the purchase, I felt like the hill had gained a mom and turns out I wasn’t the only one: Marty witnessed it from the start: “Kika was always focused on how families could better enjoy Norquay and her voice was always heard on that, whether, it was about the lodge or ski teaching programs or racing programs, Kika was always happiest when she saw that families, from both inside and outside the Bow Valley, were having fun with skiing at Norquay. That’s a pretty big legacy that continues today.”
Vania’s recollection was of a mom who was more passionate about Norquay than other owners and who truly enjoyed being there, adding her own personal touch—and still does! “When my mom was an owner, it was an era of community. Even though most of our generation was no longer ski racing—my brother Thomas competed at the World Cup level until he was 35—we all had a love for Norquay, and we were invested in its future.”
Kika and Peter held the keys until 2006, when they passed them to Ken Read and a group of partners—the Sudermanns, Stephen Ross, and others—who shared that same passion for the hill. In 2018, Adam and Janet Waterous, through Liricon Capital, became the next stewards. The family, in a sense, kept growing.
Because here’s the thing about ski hills: growth isn’t just about the tangible—new runs carved, lifts installed, lodges built. Those things aren’t enough on their own. Sometimes growth is in the intangible: a dream held for decades, friendships forged on the slopes, nostalgia for a place one learned to ski. And with enough hard work and love, there comes a day when a scrappy little hill, under new ownership, yet again, becomes mighty.
