"Your History Your County" A Children’s History of Summit County
Text: Lola Beatlebrox
Forward: NaVee Vernon
Illustration: Camille Vernon
Written for school children, “Your History Your County” is a fairly simple overview of the history of Summit County. Yes, within the book, readers discover the many complexities that make our county unique in Utah. Author Lola Beatlebrox sees the most important theme as “the interdependency of the east and the west side right from the very get go!” She suggests that the way Summit County is today really is not so different from the way it was 150 years ago.
Beatlebrox, who lives locally on an unpaved road in the company of deer and llamas, gathered up available bits of Summit County history at the instigation of county historian NaVee Vernon. Vernon has Summit County history in her veins. A descendant of Mormon handcart pioneers, she grew up in nearby Coalville, which was founded by yet another of her ancestors. After taking the job as official historian, Vernon realized that the area’s history was not only more intriguing than she had imagined, but more obscure as well. “People aren’t conscious of the diversity of our area,” she says.
Vernon shared her concept for a book — she wanted area children to learn their own history — with not only Beatlebrox, but with her daughter, illustrator Camille Vernon, and book designer Janet Thimmes.
Moral and editorial support came from school administrators and local history mavens. “Assembling the players to produce the book was the easy part,” says Vernon. “The hard part was financing it!” The local women raised money from private businesses and county government, and even Beatlebrox’s mother. There was a big sigh of relief when all county school districts pledged to buy the final product. In fact, the “core curriculum” was the structure upon which the book was built, with a prescribed word list and themes. But Beatlebrox always saw her primary role as that of storyteller, using personal accounts to tell a larger story. As an example, the state of privation in the county at one point is exemplified by the tale of the women in the nearby town of Henefer having to share a single sewing needle.
Privation, however, was not the enduring lot of Summit County where the boom-bust cycle got an early start with the silver strike of 1868. Park City — famous for its ups and downs — was not the only place to rise, fall and rise again. Throughout the county, industrialization meshed with agriculture in the form of sawmills, gristmills, brick works, quarries, coal mines and two railroads. Throw oil and gas into the modern mix; add skiing and tourism — well — Summit County has a varied urban-rural cross-grain.
Given that the book is geared toward children, the author takes a necessarily brief look at a lot of material — not unlike the short-lived Pony Express that flashed through the county. The Black Hawk Indian War is resolved in a sentence. And because the position in Utah of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is so well known, there is little written about it. Beatlebrox explains that the Mormon influence in the county was key, but not as dominant as elsewhere. There was a small indigenous population of Native Americans who had alternately cordial and difficult relations with local settlers. Later times saw waves of European and Chinese immigrants. And there was the occasional star sighting — Mark Twain and Walt Whitman each slept in an inn still visible from Interstate 80 near Kimball Junction.
Though geared toward young readers, “Your History Your County” is engaging and sometimes even startling in its revelations. Vernon hopes that it will lead coming generations to “love where they live” and take part in our area’s preservation.
Transplanted New Yorker Kate Doordan left broadcasting to move west temporarily; she’s now in the 20th year of a one-year plan.
Father, Son and Snow
Bill Kerig Pays Homage to Family, Skiing and the Big Mountain Tribe in “The Edge of Never”
In 2004, Salt Lake City resident Bill Kerig was at a crossroads. The former professional skier had carved out a modest career as a freelance writer, publishing both magazine stories and a couple of books about skiing and the skiing life. He’d also spent a year — unsuccessfully — trying to sell a reality TV show he’d produced and directed in Beirut. And though he was paying the bills, barely, he wasn’t doing what he considered living.
Then he got this idea: to make a film about the history of skiing. But he didn’t simply want to make a movie in the typical big-mountains-helicopters-and-big-egos ski film formula. He wanted to tell a story about the essence of the sport, about real people and why they are compelled to go into the mountains. For advice, Kerig called upon one of skiing’s most notorious icons, Glen Plake. “He said I should head straight to Chamonix [France],” Kerig says. Plake also told Kerig about 15-year-old Kye Peterson, whose father, freeskiing pioneer Trevor Peterson, died while skiing Chamonix’s Glacier Rond in 1996. To better understand what had happened to his father and to remember him by spreading his ashes there, Kye was attempting to ski the same dangerous run. “As soon as I heard Kye’s story, I knew it was the one to weave into my movie,” Kerig says.
Armed with backing from PJ Productions (pet project of the now-deceased television news anchor Peter Jennings), in 2005 Kerig set off for Chamonix to film young Kye skiing the Rond, a scene which would become the centerpiece of Kerig’s book and eventual feature-length documentary film of the same moniker, “The Edge of Never.” Far more than being simply about skiing, Kerig’s work picks up where other more typical ski books and films leave off. Along with the eye candy of Chamonix’s big mountains and fabulous skiing, Kerig explores the push-pull nature of father-son relationships, the importance of family, and why, despite the risks, people continue to be drawn to the mountains.
Park City Magazine: You credit Glen Plake with planting the Chamonix seed in your head in the early stages of “The Edge of Never.” What else convinced you that France was the ideal backdrop for both the book and film?
Bill Kerig: Chamonix has always held a mythic allure for me. I first saw it in Greg Stump’s ski film starring Plake, “Blizzard of Aahhh’s,” 25 years ago. It stuck with me. I knew it was the source of something special.
PCM: Along that same vein, what was it about Kye Peterson’s story that made you want to tell it?
BK: “The Edge of Never” is an external manifestation of an internal challenge I’ve dealt with my entire life. Although Trevor Peterson died when Kye was just 5, there was this natural expectation for Kye to become a skier from a very young age. My dad, William “Huck” Kerig, was an English professor and because early on I had shown promise as a writer, that became my dad’s dream, for me to become a writer. I, of course, resisted that with everything in my being. I was a jock in college. My official major was finance; unofficially it was hockey. Then after school, I moved west and skied on the World Pro Mogul Tour for 10 years. But despite not wanting to follow in my dad’s footsteps, I’ve always come back to writing.
PCM: Trevor Peterson, Kye’s father, seems to be known by only a small circle of skiing’s extreme elite. Why didn’t he enjoy the same fame as skiers like Plake?
BK: He was Canadian and much better known in Canada than in the U.S. But he was on the cover of Powder Magazine several times and in many ski movies that were mostly seen in Canada. Also, he was not nearly as good a showman as Plake.
PCM: In the midst of writing the book and making the film, you experienced your own fair share of personal tragedy and adversity: After Peter Jennings died from cancer, PJ Productions removed you and the Kye footage from the original film production released as “Steep” in 2007; publication of the book fell through twice before it was actually printed; and your wife Bel’s parents both passed away. What kept you focused on seeing both projects to fruition?
BK: I find that adversity and personal tragedy tend to make it easier to stick to things, even if they are difficult. For one, you realize your mortality and for two, focusing on something big and difficult that you care a lot about is a way to get out of the muck of self pity that could consume you when a lot of bad luck suddenly descends. Besides, Kye’s story wouldn’t let me go, and I knew I needed to figure out a way to tell it. That’s when I decided to write a book. I then purchased footage I had filmed in Chamonix back from PJ Productions and started to pursue getting the film made.
PCM: You spent this fall and early winter on a national screening tour. Any additional plans for distributing the film? Perhaps the Sundance Film Festival?
BK: I didn’t make “The Edge of Never” for a bunch of film people from L.A. and New York. I made it for skiers. So, we’re touring ski towns with it. Don’t get me wrong, however. If Hollywood were to come knocking, I’d be quick to open the door, but I didn't make it for that. I made it as a big, fat love letter to the ski world that’s given me such a great life.
Utah-based freelance writer Melissa Fields will travel to Chamonix, France, for the first time this winter. Her plans do not include skiing the Glacier Rond.
For a screening schedule or to purchase a copy of the book or film “The Edge of Never,” visit theedgeofnever.com.
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