NASTAR founder, ISHA chair, lifelong ski journalist

My thoughts are with the Fry family at this time. I grew up in Montreal reading my father's SKI magazines from cover to cover! Thank you John for your great contribution to skiing!

I met John Fry around 1980 while making the film "Legends of American Skiing:" He was interested, knowledgable, supportive and helped the film by showcasing it at Ski Busness Week. We shared a passion for skiings storied past and he often tapped me to help him convey the history, the heritage of our sport. For the last twenty years I have served on this board of the International Ski History Association. John was a visionary who brought his pubishing expertise to Skiing History Magazine and made it the outstanding publication that it is today. John will live on in its pages, as we share his love for this heritage that is delivered  in this eloguent publication. But I will miss him, his infectious chuckle, his insightful advice and making a run together on a sparkling day...

This is a shock - He contributed very much to the skiing industry - and all other things he touched.  He will be missed.

Even though John was about to enter his 10th decade when he died, it came as shock and left me profoundly sad. I don't know how to even begin summarizing his vast contributions to skiing and its heritage around the world, but I do know that he made great contributions to the legacy of skiing in Canada. A decade and half ago, when I was Chair of the Canadian Ski Museum, he approached me to see how we could generate articles for publication about Canada's skiing heritage. Through many long telephone conversations, he not only provided endless ideas about topics and issues -- and potential authors -- but he also found an important source of funds to generate and edit the stories. The resulting Canadian Ski Writers History Project became the Museum's single most important program. The last time we were together was at his table during his induction into the Laurentian Ski Museum's Hall of Fame in 2016 – another recognition of his contribution to Canada’s skiing heritage. Like so many people around the world who knew John, I will greatly miss his friendship, wise counsel, and brilliant writing. A tremendous loss to the world of skiing. My thoughts are with his family, colleagues, and friends at this sad time.

I first met John Fry at the International Ski History Congress in Park City in 2002. He was accompanied by Morten Lund when attending the delivery of my paper on Walter Foeger, and closely questioned me on my description of Emile Allais' technique.

A number of years later, after writing a few articles for Skiing Heritage / History magazine, John suggested I take on another piece to be entitled: Montreal - North America's Ski City. It required a lot of research and work, but John had a way of willing you to want to do it - and do it well.

I still owe him a couple of pieces that he suggested: Kurelek - (Tormented) Canadian Ski Artist, and Alex Foster - Quebec Rope Tow Original - and many, many more.

John was all about skiing, and telling the international ski story - but he also never forgot his Canadian roots - and wanted to record and promote its, perhaps, neglected stories.

Thank you, John, for your inspiration, your example - and your confidence. Happy trails. Bob

As a fellow redbird of john fry and as past chair of the cdn ski hall of fame and museum , i have always appreciated his candpr and hi sincerity in all the things he was involved in. We are shattered to hear of his passing and we will always hold john in high esteem as an example of helping his fellow man.

Sincerely chris edgell  montreal Quebec Canada

In 1994, John gave me my first big-time magazine job as an associate editor at Snow Country. Over the years, working for him there and later at Skiing History, he taught me how to hold every issue of every magazine to the highest standards: to examine story ideas with a critical eye, ask authors the right questions, and artfully present the finished article on the page. Until the very day he died, his comments on stories, his insights, and his headlines — succinct, funny, compelling — were always the best.

John always pushed me to be better. To my occasional frustration and eternal gratitude, he was (almost) always right.

Cheers, John! I will miss talking to you on the phone, long conversations with you at our house and in Katonah, and receiving your many, many emails directing me on my next "urgent" task.

My mentor, John hired me at SKI Magazine in the spring of 1974, and I began work after the Independence Day weekend. He didn't like to micro-manage -- in my case he threw projects at me and watched. If you could meet deadlines with accurate copy without his intervention, more projects came thick and fast. Within a year, in addition to reporting for SKI, I was editing SKI Business, including its huge trade show issue, and production-editing XC Ski. John rarely praised, but after each Christmas party there was a thank-you note on the Selectric with notification of a nice raise. I can't say he loosened the reins as time went on, because they were pretty loose to begin with, but I pretty much got to create my own assignments, so I took on travel writing, race reporting, personality profiles. I skied a ton. It was the best job imaginable. When John was promoted to editorial director and became responsible for Golf and Outdoor life, we saw less of him. He was the best boss I ever had. Some time later, after he'd left Times Mirror, he offered me a job at Snow Country. By this time I was living in Truckee and skiing daily at Squaw, which was pretty good fixins', and I didn't really understand what Snow Country was supposed to be, or how successful it would become -- so I stupidly declined the offer. Decades later he asked me to join Skiing History, and I was delighted to work with him again. After 45 years, I only wish we could work together forever. 

John wasn't a sportswriter, precisely, though his reporting on the Olympics was unsurpassed. And while he bought into the idea that a ski magazine should promote participation in the sport, he was a crusader for the integrity of the sport (he always insisted that skiing is a sport, not an industry). When he saw chaos or self-dealing in the management of the ski team, he called it out. He wrote skeptically and incisively about the rapid overgrowth of ski resorts, their environmental impact and political repercussions. These campaigns took courage -- they were unpopular in influential quarters. The same skepticism -- the eagerness to look past hype and myth to uncover hard facts -- served him well as an historian. And made him a great role model. I miss him terribly, already.

I got to know John, a great ski historian, through various projects. The first was our chronicle, ”Hahnenkamm – Chronicel of a Myth“ volume 1, and later volume 2.

At some point, he became interested in the history of Kitzbühel Ski Club especially our ski pioneer, Karl Koller. We sent him lots of pictures and a long account, which was created from the many interviews held with Karl Koller. After a few weeks, I received lots of questions back. That was John Fry, he was a meticulous researcher and left nothing to chance. He was very precise and did not just reproduce articles written by others. Correctness and accuracy is what distinguished John.

Our thoughts and deepest sympathy go out to his family, the ISHA family and his friends. We will always honour and cherish John’s memory.

Your, Kitzbüheler Ski Club (KSC), organizer Hahnenkamm Race

Passion is what fuels skiing and John’s tank was overflowing with it.

That passion kept him re-inventing himself and remaining a true ski activist.

We’ll all miss him and I’ll make many good turns on his behalf these next days...

I met John and Marlies in the early 1980s when I visited N.Y. John picked me up at my hotel and took me to their home. This was the first and only time I have met him and I was struck at once by his kindness. I had known Marlies since 1963/4 when I met her on a ski slope in New York State. Now my thoughts are with her and her family. 

Tribute: 

To John Fry: That Bespoke Man

Rarely in life, one meets another who exhibits obvious and copious specialness. Rarer, we meet that person who shows that uniqueness after mere minutes, no less hours, days or, if we are as lucky as it is rare, longer.

John Fry was that bespoke man.

Some shine because of a light in the eye. Some show because of a display, something in their personality that sparkles. Some stand out because of the words they chose. Or the stories they have to tell. Or the way they tell them. 

But most of all, people make us think of them because they care. They really care.

John Fry was one of those special ones, and everyone I knew that knew him knew that, too.

The story that John Fry first told me was the best reason of all to care: his family.

We met at a tiny hotel in a remote part of the southern most part of South America. He was with his wife, Marlies, who was kind enough to endulge my desire to practice my challenged German, and who told me of their beloved daughter, then a teenager, I recall.

John later told me during a hike about how much better a father he was becoming, later in life. 

And they both told me of their love for my father. 

They both were special, because they cared.

Another person who takes caring to that next level is John and Marlies’ old friend, John Russell.

I was with John Russell in early 2020.

The name John Fry came up, and John Russell used that as an excuse to both test and leverage an excuse to call John and Marlies, and just say “hey.”

For the next twenty minutes, we talked in combinations, we told those stories, we reminded one another about how we cared.

A month later, John Fry had passed. His soul still cared, but his heart just couldn’t any more. 

And now I know my life was made a little better because of the magic and caring of one J. Fry.

I can see him musing that over on a special, magically-colored cloud, beside the best beach and golf course Heaven can offer.

And sharing that with my dad.