In 2024, the Plum Ski-ters Ski Team out of Plum Lake in Vilas County earned the Division three first place at the Water Ski State Tournament.
The following year as they worked to defend their state championship title, filmmaker Kate Reichl was documenting every part of that journey from the first show of the season to the very last.
“A lot of people know about water ski teams in the Northwoods, but they might not know about this competition aspect, and these teams going down and competing at state, and kind of like how that works, what it's all about,” said Reichl.
The documentary also features the Chain Skimmers, the Plum Ski-ters local rivals out of Conover.
As the Plum Ski-ters are honing their skills in preparation for state, they’re also trying to figure out they can keep skiing at the site the team has used since the 1970s.
The Plum Ski-ters practice and perform on Plum Lake at State House Point. The team has a contract with the Wisconsin DNR to use the land there.
When they went to renew the contract in 2022, the DNR told them they had to remediate hillside erosion leaving the team to come up with about a quarter of a million dollars.
“There's aspects of the documentary that talk about trying to fundraise, and where they're going to get the money to do this, and how it impacts the team,” said Reichl. “I mean that's the ski site. If the agreement doesn't go through with the DNR, then they're kind of at a loss there.”
There will be a free showing of “A Ski-ter Summer” at the Lakeland Cinema on Friday, July 10th at 1:00 p.m.
It’s a feature length documentary with a runtime of 100 minutes, rated PG.
