Belknap S-K-I, Racers and Hare — c. 1950s

A vintage Belknap ski patch, estimated to date from the 1950s, featuring three skiers in brown and navy chasing — or being chased by — a white hare roughly the size of a deer. BELKNAP across the top in gold, with an S above and an I below so the name doubles as the K in SKI. Red-bordered shield.

Belknap was the Belknap Mountains Recreation Area in Gilford, built in the mid-1930s with federal relief money and Works Progress Administration labor. In 1937–38 it put a single chairlift on Mt. Rowe, the first chairlift in the East. Every ski area from Vermont to Maine spent the next twenty years catching up. The lift was built with federal money in the Depression, which means the first chair in the East was, in a sense, a public works project.

In 1962 a double chair went to the summit of Gunstock Mountain, and the whole area took the summit's name. Belknap stopped appearing on patches.

So this is a record of a name that isn't used anymore. Nobody seems to have written down why the hare is there. He's winning.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge. Photos are the condition report.