Nor-Ski Ridge

Nor-Ski Ridge stood on Highway 42 about a mile south of Fish Creek, on the site of the Lone Pine Hill ski jump. Harold Larson, known as Wink, a former ski jumper who had served on a ski patrol in Germany with the Army, built it in 1960. It had eight slopes for beginners to experts, several rope tows, a T-bar and snowmaking. His family ran the chalet's restaurant and ski shop, the hill helped start the Gibraltar ski team, and skiers came from the Green Bay area and Chicago.^1,3

Accounts of the 1970s differ. One Door County Pulse history says Larson sold in 1972 to Milwaukee investors who kept the Nor-Ski name for several years before a later owner renamed it Omnibus. Another says Steve Kastner bought the hill and lodge out of foreclosure and opened the Omnibus, a music bar, in 1972, then sold the unprofitable lift after a couple of seasons, ending the skiing. MWLSAP dates the Omnibus name to 1974 and the last skiing to 1977, and lists three rope tows, a T-bar and a double chair in 1976, with 226 feet of vertical.^1,2,3

The bar was sold in late 1982, and its building was later burned in a Gibraltar Fire Department training exercise. The land became the Little Sweden homes.^1,3

TodayThe Little Sweden residential development stands on the old ski hill. (2015)^1,3