April 18, 2009
Historic Gray Rocks Inn Closes
Gray Rocks Inn with dog team and airplane
In 1906 the Gray Rocks Inn ski resort opened in St. Jovite Station, Québec, in the Laurentians. It had started life as the private home of George and Lucille Wheeler. Gray Rocks Inn became a colourful and popular resort that offered a great deal more than skiing. Apart from downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, hiking, tennis, golf, mountain climbing, dogsledding, and a variety of other recreations were offered for the amusement of Montrealers and others from further afield.
Gray Rocks Inn was run by three generations of Wheelers before it was finally sold in 1983 by George Wheeler's grandson "Biff" Harry Wheeler, Jr. In 1930 and 1931 Biff's father Harry R. Wheeler acquired sleddogs from the Poland Spring Kennels of Leonhard Seppala and Elizabeth M. Ricker. The Wheeler dogs became the first registered Siberian Huskies in 1939 when the breed was recognised by the Canadian Kennel Club. Harry Wheeler bred Siberians of the pure Leonhard Seppala strain for two decades before he sold "Seppala Kennels" to C. S. MacLean and J. D. McFaul of Maniwaki, Québec. It is fair to say that the Siberian Husky breed worldwide could hardly exist today were it not for the contribution of the Wheeler kennel, which was crucial both to racing and to show bloodlines of that breed. Moreover, the Wheeler stock, through dogs sold to William L. Shearer III's Foxstand Kennels and to the MacLean/McFaul partnership, eventually gave rise to the Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed in Canada in the late 1990s.
The present owners of the property decided that it was no longer a profitable enterprise and closed the resort last 29 March after 103 years in business. Gray Rocks Inn was for most of those years something of a shrine to dog drivers in Canada; its closing represents a significant passage for dogsled sport in this country.
Click here to read the Canwest News Service story.