  ::::: Come on guys, you're both right! I think Ingolfson's ref is excellent, although it's a little out of date because, as 210.54.245.44 has correctly stated, there are only three ski areas in the Mackenzie and yes, all three are small and commercial. There are no club fields left around here and hasn't been for ages. The nearest would be the Awakino field up behind Kurow, which is not generally considered to be in the Mackenzie. So yeah, the article isn't entirely accurate, and it does devote lot of space to areas outside of the Mackenzie, but overall I'd rate it as relevent to the subject. Re the spartan uncrowded wording, I would ditch the spartan part. The local ski areas used to be a bit rough when compared with the big flash fields elsewhere but they aren't like that now and a lot of money has been spent on them in recent years. I would suspect they are less crowded than the big fields so that wording can probably stay. How long these ski fields will last is a matter of conjecture. There has been less snow every year for many years and only the snow guns are keeping them going. All three fields have been up for sale for a number of years. The planned new ski area up in the Duncan valley has been scrapped as unviable due to the lack of reliable snowfall. So anyway, for what it's worth, I vote to include Ingolfson's article but delete the words 'club' and 'spartan'.   