Gisela Bahm carried a love of mountains from war-time Germany to Whistler
A carved cedar snow post used to measure snow depth at Diamond Head Lodge sits on one windowsill in Gisela Bahm’s West Vancouver apartment. A lifetime of memories; crayon drawings from grandchildren, and photographs of her sisters and mother dressed in long woollen skirts decorate the room.
"How can they go in the mountains in long skirts?" Gisela asks, as she gets up briskly to answer the phone. She talks for a few minutes in German then sits back down at her small kitchen table.
"It is one that is very interested in mountains," she tells me in her thick accent.
Gisela has always loved the mountains; a love she carried with her from the Alps in Europe to Diamond Head in Garibaldi Provincial Park and Whistler. Born 89 years ago in the town of Mecklenburg, in eastern Germany, she was 18 when her parents took her to a town in the Bavarian Alps. Gisela and her three brothers and two sisters hiked every day, staying in cowgirl huts in the alpine meadows.
"The cowgirls went up from the villages with cows to the big meadows high up," Gisela explains. "All summer they had the cows up there and the cowgirls made cheese."
Gisela’s family slept on hay and cooked their meals on a wood-burning stove.
"There was very good milk," she says. "The milk of the cows in the Alps is fantastic!"
Some hikers came to the Alps to pick little white flowers, called edelweiss.
"You could only find it on the high mountains," Gisela says, as if she’s telling a secret. "If a young man was in love with a girl, he brought her edelweiss from the mountains."
But one morning everything changed for Gisela’s family. Gisela’s father had built up and worked a 1,000-hectare farm for 28 years. The family had 20 cows, 80 horses and 800 sheep and pigs. Then the Russian army invaded Germany. The army was two days away when Gisela heard the canons. When the Russian planes flew over the farm there was a loud whistle and everybody went into the shelters.
"I had to flee from Mecklenburg when the Russians came," Gisela says.
But leaving was not going to be easy. Hitler had taken all the motorcars away for the war effort and had forbidden people from leaving their farms. On the morning Gisela was preparing to go, she went outside to her rubber-tired, horse-drawn wagon. Nazi officers were standing outside her front door.
"You are not going and we have taken your wagon," an officer told Gisela.
The roads were full of German military trucks coming from the east, fleeing the Russians. Fortunately for Gisela, her schoolmate, Elizabeth, arrived to help.
"She came with four horses," Gisela says. "She had a widow with a child on the wagon and she said, ‘I want to rest with you and feed my horses and eat for one night.’"
When her schoolmate learned Gisela was being held captive, she said, "we better go tonight, and we take you."
On April 29, 1945 at about 8 p.m., Gisela gathered up some warm clothing and food, climbed up on a chair and escaped out a ground floor window with her two small children.
"I didn’t see the watchman," Gisela recounts, remembering rain was starting to fall. "I went over the lawn and met my friend at the crossroad."
Gisela and the two children escaped with Elizabeth and the widow with the baby.
Travelling by wagon they headed for Gisela’s uncle’s farm 70 kilometres away. They were approaching a wooden bridge the next morning when they heard the roaring sound of a large engine.
"A big Panzer came," Gisela continues.
The bridge buckled under the weight of the Panzer as it crossed and climbed up the other side.
"We thought only of safety," Gisela says.
This river had become a border dividing Germany. Gisela knew her parents had gone ahead to the west and she wanted to get across the line before the Russians advanced.
"We had the feeling when we were over the bridge, we didn’t have to fear anymore," Gisela says.
But, her uncle’s farm was still one day away. And the farm where her parents were staying was two days away.
"We went on country roads," Gisela continues. "We were four kilometres before my uncle’s farm when my friend said, ‘I can’t do it anymore. I have to sleep.’"
Elizabeth had been on horseback for 24 hours. She just slid off the horse, removed the reins, and let the horses graze. Then, just as she lay down, the Russian planes came again.
"We were in a little wood with high trees that were just starting to turn green," Gisela remembers. "Nobody could see us and then all of a sudden airplanes were shooting everywhere."
The Russians were shooting at the horse-drawn wagons. After 10 or 15 minutes it was all over. When the wagon party left the woods, Gisela and Elizabeth saw dead horses and turned over wagons. All the people had gone.
"We were saved by being in the woods, "Gisela says.
When Gisela’s wagon approached her uncle’s farm, she saw him standing at his gateway waving his arms.
"I can’t take anymore," her uncle said, when they got closer.
There were covered wagons in the farmyard. Refugees had stayed with their wagons, sleeping there to protect them. Gisela jumped off the wagon. When her uncle saw it was her, he took her in his arms and said, "of course, come in."
The barn was full of refugees. More refugees from East and West Prussia and Poland were in the farmhouse.
"Food is still on the table and the beds are warm," her uncle said.
But her uncle told her she’d have to leave that night.
"I wake you up at one o’clock and at two o’clock, you have to start on the way to your parents," he told her. "It’s six hours but you have to go."
Before leaving, Gisela helped the family feed the refugees and horses.
"I cooked milk soup for the refugees," she recalls. "There were 43 people."
The moon was shining through broken clouds when Gisela left her uncle’s farm that night. She remembered riding over countryside she’d ridden through when she was a little girl. After an uneventful journey, they arrived at her father’s house at Grosthureau at 9 the next morning.
"My father came right out and said, ‘come in for breakfast but be quiet, we have very interesting news from Berlin.’"
"So, we went in and we heard Hitler’s favourite music, Beethoven," Gisela continues, "and then someone said, ‘Hitler has shot himself in his basement, and shot his wife as well.’"
Gisela’s father was standing around the big breakfast table in the kitchen with many refugees.
"My father said, ‘that awful creature; we don’t have to fear anymore!’" Gisela says. "He was so excited. His eyes, I never forget. His blue eyes like flames!"
Gisela remembered something her father had said two years earlier: "Dear family, we live in a very dangerous time. After this time comes another one. Let’s see that we can reach that other time."
For Gisela, that time came in 1964 when she visited Canada.
"I said to my son, it’s beautiful here in Vancouver," Gisela says. "Oceans on one side and mountains here, but can we go and stay in the mountains?
"My son said, ‘I have found the Brandvold house at Diamond Head.’"
Brothers Emil and Ottar Brandvold opened B.C.’s first private ski lodge in 1946 at Diamond Head, outside Squamish.
When Gisela hiked up Diamond Head, she loved it.
"I came in the fall," she continues. "There were little rooms in the house, one on top of the other. The Brandvolds had developed seven trails that I could hike without danger. I went down to Mamquam Lake. That was a long tour. And I went down over the saddle, down to the Gargoyles. My highest was Lava Mountain."
But Garibaldi was a park and government officials wanted the Brandvolds out.
"The people said, no!" Gisela recounts defiantly. "We want the Brandvolds there!’"
So the Brandvolds stayed but the Ministry of Parks made it difficult for them.
"They were very jealous because everybody loved the Brandvolds," Gisela says mater-of-factly.
Guests at the lodge were given packed lunches and huge dinners awaited them when they returned from their hikes.
"Ottar played the accordion in the evening and they had a film on how they built the hut," Gisela says.
It was while Gisela was at Diamond Head that she first heard about Whistler.
"Ottar Brandvold had people from the Olympics to check out if they could have the Olympic Games up at Diamond Head," Gisela says. That was in 1960.
"Ottar said, ‘it’s too narrow here. It’s too small for many people. But with the helicopter, I show you something.’ And, he showed them Whistler," Gisela continues.
Later, Gisela would form a deep bond with Whistler.
"My mother died in Germany and I couldn’t go there," she says. "I felt very sorry and had the feeling I had to go somewhere high up and think of her, because she loved the mountains so much. So, I went by bus to Whistler and spent a wonderful sunny day in March on Whistler."
She remembers visiting Whistler again one May.
"The gondola lift went high up to the peak and the snow was so hard, I could walk over it," she recounts. "I walked all the ridge. It was wonderful!"
At 89 Gisela doesn’t go hiking as much as she used to, but she never misses a chance to go to the mountains. Last year, she visited her son in Bavaria.
"I go in the winter time when my garden sleeps," she says. "He has a tandem bicycle for his wife. Since my hip operation eight years ago, I don’t have the balance on my bike anymore. But on the tandem my son holds the balance and I just pedal. And, we went on mountain roads and, I could see all the mountains I had been hiking on. That was wonderful."
Up until she was 80 years old, Gisela still took seniors to Diamond Head. She stayed at the lodge from Labour Day until the snow came.
"I made tea on weekends for all the people who had jobs and came up in the middle of the night," she says.
The last time she was at Diamond Head was eight years ago.
"It was too much for me then," she acknowledges.
She was sad to see the lodge used as a storage room and to hear that in winter it’s completely snowed-in. But in Whistler there’s something that keeps her connected to the mountains. One Thanksgiving, she took her grandchildren to the Whistler Youth Hostel.
"They had a big dinner and a boat on the lake and we could go boating," she recounts. "And that was really country-like. That was not over crowded. And the youth hostel is still there."
Gisela will always love the mountains. She has big plans for her 90 th birthday.
"I tell Parks I want a helicopter!" she says, laughing.
