Enchanted Mountain Ski Patch, Sealed (Lost Mountain) — c. 1960s-70s

A vintage Enchanted Mountain ski patch from Jackman, Maine, estimated to date from the 1960s or 70s, still sealed in the original Apatche-Totem bag, header card intact: washable patch, made in U.S.A. by American Craftsmen, 70 W. 40th St., N.Y.C. Through the cellophane: an arched shield with a white merrowed border, a deep blue sky, a turreted white castle standing on a white summit, a yellow moon hung at the upper left and one dark bird crossing beneath it. ENCHANTED MOUNTAIN in yellow along the bottom.

This is the best drawing in the Maine collection and it is still in the bag. Sealed stock from an area that is long quiet, with artwork nobody would commission today from a mountain nobody can ski — it is the only patch here where every single thing that makes one of these worth owning happens to line up at once.

Jackman sits fifteen miles from the Quebec border, in a county with more logging road than pavement. For a run of winters in the seventies it had a ski area, and somebody there decided to call it Enchanted Mountain. Not Eagle. Not Summit. Not Northern Peak. Enchanted. Then somebody had to draw the patch, and whoever got that job made a choice no committee would approve today.

That gap is the entire point. The people who cut these small mountains were not selling a destination. They were selling the idea that on a Saturday twenty minutes from your house, something slightly magic was going on, and that you could be back by supper.

The lifts are gone. The castle is still up there.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge, unopened in the original packaging. Photos are the condition report.