In 1997, at the age of 75, Syd Feuz retired as a heli-ski guide and from the family tradition of guiding that goes back to 1899 when his grandfather Edouard Feuz Sr. and Christian Haesler were first engaged as mountain guides by the CPR.

Within a few years, brothers Ernest, Walter and Edward Feuz Jr. came from Switzerland to work with their father Edouard guiding CPR guests through the Rockies and Purcells.

Walter Feuz and Johanna Heimann were married in 1914 at CPR’s Glacier House hotel, the Swiss Guides’ home

base west of Rogers Pass. They both worked and lived at Glacier House then moved into Golden in 1916, first to a little house on 11 Ave. N. then just up the hill to Edelweiss and started a family: Doris in 1918, then Ann, Syd, Paul, Ron, Betty, Jean, and Lucy.

Syd is holding a portrait of Johanna taken in 1916 with his arm outstretched to his wife Beda. The background image was taken by William Wenman circa 1920 of the Swiss Village, six chalets built in 1911 to house Swiss Guides’ families. 

Daughter Jean remembers growing up in the house with a small ski hill in the back and a slough at the foot of the hill to skate on in the winter. All the childrenwalked into town to the school beside the old MasonicHall then later to Lady Grey.

Jean cared for her parents until their passing and, with husband Allen Vaughan (see Nattrass) they have lovingly kept the family home as a heritage museum with everything just as it was when Walter and Johanna were alive.