A gorby is a loud, vulgar tourist in the local vocabulary of central Ontario ’s Muskoka vacation, cottage, and resort area. Younger Muskokans describe with this dismissive insult noise-making visitors of the yahoo persuasion. “Oh-oh. Another busload of gorbies!” This does not imply that visitors, upon whom some of the Muskoka economy depends, are treated badly. On the contrary, Muskokans are polite to a fault. But they do View my special tribute page to jet skiers by clicking on this sentence. The origin of gorby lies, I believe, in 1950s campers’ and backpackers’ slang. G.O.R.P. is an acronym for Good Old Raisins and Peanuts, a trail mix suitable for canoe nibbling and bike foodpacks, easily packed, and not subject to immediate spoilage. However, when people who were practically born paddling a canoe across a small lake to a store see a tourist and canoeing neophyte set off on the same trip with thousands of dollars worth of yuppie camping equipment and three pounds of G.O.R.P.—to sustain them in their fifteen minute canoe paddle across the lake—then it seems natural that gorpy, later gorby, might arise as a mild put-down.
G.O.R.P. = Good Old Raisins & Peanuts Other North American uses of gorby are later than the doofus camper meanings. The camper and dumb tourist meanings came first in the 1950s. The definitions that follow belong to the 1980s and 1990s, and some are still in use today, in 2007. 1. A gorby is a skier or snowboarder not dressed in proper sporting clothes. 2. One site states that gorby is a derogative term for a tourist or one who is ignorant of Canadian culture and geography. 3. The Urban Dictionary says a gorby is a skier fool with no clue about what’s up either on the hill or at the after-ski bar. A gorby appears at a ski resort on weekends, clad in florescent headbands and giant sunglasses, which are common attire for these straight-up losers. 4. Another site says a gorby is “a person who sucks at snowboarding. Gorby is an acronym for Guy On Rental Board. Used in the following way: “Dude, these gorbys are always in my way!”
G.O.R.P. today is a common acronym among mountaineers, long-distance cyclists, snowboarders, skiers and backpackers the world over. Gorp is used in German and French. One summer morning on a mountain road outside Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites of northern Italy I heard an Italian cyclist laughingly put down a plump fellow rider as a “vero gorpone,” the gist of the delightful nonce word being ‘a real trail-mix fatty.’ I hasten to add I was walking on a guided alpine tour, not riding at high altitude like these goaty dudes below.
mountain bike path in the Dolomites near Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
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have the word gorby to dismiss the litterbugs who happen through the district every summer, despoiling the greenery with disposable diapers flung at random into bushes beside a road. Gorbies also include PWC operators and motorboating cretins, the droolers and brainstems who shatter lacustrine peace with rude outboards and strident, tympani-ripping jet skis as they vroom! too close to shore, in front of the cottage where children are swimming.
