Sun Peaks has lost a long-standing business owner and avid skier, Ian McLaren.
McLaren passed away Sept. 24, 2023, after a long and storied history as a ski racer, proud Scotsman, business owner, devoted husband and father. He was the original owner of McSporties, Sun Peaks’ first independent retail store, until his diagnosis of dementia and aphasia in 2016. A celebration of life is planned for the upcoming ski season, tentatively scheduled for Ian’s birthday in December.
According to his obituary, McLaren was born in Broughty Ferry, Scotland, Dec. 7, 1950. He and his family immigrated to Vancouver in 1951 when McLaren was six months old. The family moved to Kamloops in 1956, fostering McLaren’s passion for sports.
A talented ski racer, he began racing in Kamloops at the Kamloops Ski Hill when he was eight and was one of the first people to ride the Burfield Chairlift in 1961 on Tod Mountain. He competed in all 39 Over the Hill Downhill ski races at SilverStar Resort, winning multiple times with his teams. As a business owner, he was devoted to skiing, owning Consigner Sports in Kamloops, which would eventually become McSporties and open in Sun Peaks.
SPIN sat down with Matthias Schmid, current owner of McSporties and long-time friend of McLaren, to learn about the legacy McLaren has left behind.
Schmid recalled first meeting McLaren through McLaren’s consignment sports store growing up in Kamloops.
Schmid also chased the rush of ski racing, and buying gear wasn’t often in his family’s budget. So, whenever Schmid and his father dropped their garbage off at the depot, he would pick through the scrap metal collection and find used bikes, which he would fix, selling them on consignment at McLaren’s store.
“I actually started doing business with Macky (McLaren) when I was like 11 years old,” Schmid explained. “I was bringing bikes to the shop to sell, so I had store credit.”
The two fostered a deeper relationship when Schmid started working at McSporties from 1996 to 2002. Afterward, when Schmid went off to school, the two stayed in touch over the years.
“He was like an adopted uncle to me,” Schmid said.
McLaren’s decision to open Mcsporties in the ‘90s was a risk, according to Schmid, with the business relying on seasonal winter tourism.
“Until you’re in the saddle and running the business, you don’t understand how crazy that would have been to have been up here in 1996. Opening up a seasonal business at a resort that’s fairly new in the sense that it’s just been bought and it’s developing – it all worked out, but you got to pay a lot of respect to how big a risk it was.”
By 2016, Schmid had an opportunity to purchase McSporties after McLaren’s diagnosis of dementia. The timing wasn’t ideal, as Schmid had just put a down payment on a house in Kamloops when he found out McLaren wanted to sell him the store.
“I did everything I could to get enough money together to make it happen,” Schmid said. “I didn’t want McSporties to close when he got sick. It was important that that legacy lives on.”
Schmid remembers McLaren as “a positive person” everyone wanted to be around.
“He had a whole life that was dedicated to trying to have a good time,” Schmid said. “The reason there’s a lot of people that care is because he was fun to be around and he was a positive person. You never knew what he was going to get up to.”
Anyone who knew McLaren can write about their memories on his obituary page, send flowers to his family and receive updates about his upcoming celebration of life.
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