Nov. 2010: Carving out a way of life

Many of Historic Park City’s small businesses are as unique as the buildings that house them.   It may take an adventurous spirit to live in the mountains, but it’s takes a prospector’s resolve to make a living here.    Mark Miller found a way to turn his hobby, the collection of antique skies, into a thriving Internet business with an office on Main Street.    The Mark Miller Antique Skis Collection (antiqueskis.com) has amassed thousands of winter antiques including antique skis, vintage snowshoes, sleighs, sleds and more--the largest collection of antique winter sports equipment in the U.S.

Miller began his collection while growing up in Orford, New Hampshire, encouraged by his grandfather Gordon "Moose" Miller. For Moose, skiing was a necessity, a mode of transportation to collect maple sap for syrup.  In those days,  if you wanted to ski down a mountain, you had to hike up it first. When Moose passed away in 1989, Mark inherited his grandfather's skis and with them a passion for antiques.    Today Mark searches far and wide for his antiques, finding many of them in Europe and restores most of them himself.