Brian Pender, Barb Pump, Auden Schendler Erin Sprague, Bill Ward
Megan Brown
Staff Writer
Forty minutes from Chautauqua, Cockaigne Resort is nestled in Cherry Creek, New York, a small town with a population of less than 500. In 2011, the ski resort suffered a fire that burned down the lodge, but in 2017, it came under new ownership with the hopes of reopening the slopes in December 2019.
But after the COVID-19 pandemic and less than 40 inches of snow during the 2023–24 season, Cockaigne closed for the rest of the 2023–24 season in February 2024.
“This is significantly less than average for us,” Cockaigne told The Post-Journal. “We have only had a few periods where the temps afforded us marginal opportunities to make snow and we made as much as our snow making system would produce.”
Now rebranding as a wedding venue after an attempt to sell, the resort has shifted away from snow sports entirely.
At 12:15 p.m. today in Smith Wilkes Hall, the Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative hosts a special forum titled “Chautauqua’s Winter Recreation Economy in a Changing Climate.” Joining the panel are Erin Sprague, CEO of Protect Our Winters; Auden Schendler, climate activist and author of Terrible Beauty; Barb Pump, executive director of the Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce; Brian Pender, president of the Mayville Chamber of Commerce; and Bill Ward, board president of Chautauqua County Rails to Trails and chair of the Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau.
While Western New York saw heavy snowfall in the winter of 2024–25, the total snowfall significantly decreased from the average from 2020 to 2024. When Sprague worked as the chief marketing officer at Aspen Skiing Company, as someone in charge of revenue generation, she saw that they were losing weeks of their season to bad weather.
As an executive for POW, Sprague works to get outdoor enthusiasts to advocate for climate legislation.
“When you’re someone who loves the outdoors, you are deeply motivated to protect it and cherish it — and you appreciate it in a different way,” Sprague said. “Some of my best life experiences have been on trails, with family, with friends, and all of that is under threat.”
Sprague sees climate legislation as a chance to create a range of new jobs, pointing to the Inflation Reduction Act as one of the legislations creating new jobs.
“Eighty percent of those jobs went to red states, and these are modern, higher-paying jobs than what the alternative might offer,” she said. “We have a chance to pick a strategy that builds a more technological future.”
With climate change impacting the outdoor recreation industry, Sprague said that puts middle-class jobs and family businesses at risk. While some might say that those are “just sports and recreation,” she doesn’t see the industry as being so easily dismissed.
“I think we should be doing everything we can to preserve our sources of joy and connection with others,” she said.
Ski resorts, like Cockaigne or others in low-altitude locations, are already struggling or will be hit first by climate change, Sprague said.
“The East Coast will be hit first,” she said. “Ski resorts that have higher altitudes have a little time, but everything is accelerating — it’s not slowing down. We’re at a real risk of losing this sport, losing this livelihood, losing some of our greatest Olympians, some of our history.”
