Written By: Ben Cosgrove
In February 1945, LIFE magazine declared Mont-Tremblant, a resort in the Laurentian Mountains 90 miles north of Montreal, the “ski-fashion center of the world.” The reasons for Mont Tremblant’s surpassing winter-style meccas like St. Moritz and Sun Valley, according to LIFE, were two: “Many of the guests are rich, well-dressed friends of the owner, Joseph B. Ryan, grandson of financier Thomas Fortune Ryan, [and] one of the instructors is a beautiful former model, Blanche Rybizka.”
In the midst of one of the snowiest, most unsettled winters in decades, LIFE.com remembers that long-ago issue of LIFE — and the lovely Blanche Rybizka’s singular fashion sense — with a series of Alfred Eisenstaedt photos of Canadian winter scenery and winter finery.
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
![For skiing at 40 degrees below zero Blanche [Rybizka] wears a deerhide jacket, a raccoon-edged hood, fur-lined mittens and two pairs of underwear under her trim pants.](https://static.life.com/wp-content/uploads/migrated/2014/12/141205-canada-winter-fashions-02-792x1024.jpg "Mont-Tremblant 1945")
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mont-Tremblant 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
LIFE Magazine cover, February 19, 1945
LIFE Magazine
