A Selective Chronology of Nordic Skiing

Prepared for the 2009 Exhibit

Nordic Skiing From Stone Age to Skating

By Jeff Leich, New England Ski Museum

22,000 years Before Present:          “An ice cap a mile high covered Greenland, much of North America, all of Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic and the rim of Siberia. It spread over Europe, down as far as central France, around Lyon. There, the Paleolithic Cro-Magnon man hunted the reindeer roaming the tundra that ran up to the line of the ice front. Cave drawings hint that he knew the sledge, the snowshoe and the ski.”

Roland Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion: The Dramatic History of Skiing. New York: Continuum, 2008, 3.

Ca. 6000 BC:       “The earliest known traces come from northern Russia, near the White Sea. They were uncovered during the 1960s by Grigoriy Burov, a Ukrainian archeologist, at a dig called Vis, after an adjoining river. They were in the form of fragments from about 6,000 BC. Belonging to the Mesolithic, that is between the Old and New Stone Age, they are among the oldest wooden objects ever found. They predate the invention of the wheel, in south-eastern Europe or Asia Minor, by three-and-a-half millennia.

…the Vis fragments…come from a peat bog. They are common in the north and luckily preserve certain kinds of wood. About 200 old skis have been unearthed in Sweden, Finland and Norway and an unknown number in Russia. They span the best part of eight millennia. The archeological record is nonetheless incomplete. Some skis must have been made of birch or other deciduous wood. Almost none have come down to us from the distant past. Most surviving skis were made from conifers, mostly pine. The resin preserves it in the peat bogs, where hardwoods are destroyed.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 5.

Ca. 2000 BC:       “At Alta and perhaps Rødø in northern Norway there are prehistoric rock drawings of skiers from around 2000 BC, and the new Stone Age or Neolithic. Better still is a series of rock drawings from the same period. They are at Zalavruga, in north-west Russia, near Burov’s excavations at Vis.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 6.

5200 years Before Present:              “The Kalvträsk ski comes from the coastal lowlands of northern Sweden….The Kalvträsk find…is the oldest complete ski yet excavated. Accidentally found by a forestry inspector in 1924, the Kalvträsk ski belonged originally to a pair, together with part of a stick, but one ski crumbled during transport from the peat bog where it was found.

                “The Kalvträsk ski is an anomaly. Its length of 204 cm, and relatively narrow width of 15 cm place it among the Western Fennoscandian group of skis. By its vertical binding holes, however, it is an eastern type, once common in Siberia. Like a Stone Age relic, it still exists among Mongolians who have clung to their native skiing tradition in the Altai mountains of Central Asia. If nothing else, it is a pointer to early migration.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 8-10

7^th Century AD:                   “The breakthrough comes from a Chinese work, the Bei Shi or ‘Northern History’. It mentions the “Northern Shiwei’, who live around the Tuhe Mountains, where the climate is

Extremely cold…In winter they go into the mountains and live in earth dugouts…There is an abundance of river deer, which they hunt with bow and arrow…When there are large amounts of snow on the ground, fearing lest they fall into crevasses or pitfalls, they ride on wood.

This is the first known direct allusion to ski, anywhere….It is in the realm of the real world. The Tuhe Mountains are now the Lesser Xing’an Range. The Shiwei were the ancestors of the Mongols.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 17.

Late 15^th Century:               A depiction of skis, possibly the earliest on paper known, appeared in a Russian manuscript. The illustration caption by the author reads, "Passers-by heard singing by angels at the spot where the body of Prince Gleb was discovered."

Likhachev, N. P.  Litsevoe zhitie sviatykh blagoviernykh kniazei russkikh Borisa i Glieba, po rukopisi kontsa XV stolietiia [Illustrated Life of the Holy and Blessed Russian Princes Boris and Gleb, from a Late 15th Century Manuscript].  St. Petersburg:  Obshchestvo drevnei pis'mennosti [Society for Old Literature], volume 124, illustration #15, 1907. Facsimile of manuscript in Library of Congress, translation by Harold M. Leich.

1555:     “Olaus (Magnus) published his book at last; in Latin, of course. The title was Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus—‘An Account of the Northern Peoples.’ This was one of the formative works of the later Renaissance. It brought the North into European consciousness. The first book on Scandinavia by a native writer to be published abroad, it was also the first comprehensive description. Over 800 pages long, it was yet no daunting tome but wholly readable, bursting with illustrations and haunted by the spirit of an exile pining for his native land. It was a best seller from the start and was quickly translated into Italian.

…Olaus dismissed the notion of the horrors of the frigid zone. He was the first to expound on the charms of the northern winter; the first to offer an authentic disquisition on snow and skiing in print.

By their skill, these people can climb mountains which wee otherwise completely inaccessible and also race down into the steepest valleys, especially in the wintertime…Thus, after leaving the depth of the valley, they will make their way ahead in wide swings round the bases of the crags, and then steer obliquely in short zigzags up the slopes until finally, over precipices and crevasses reach the summit., and the goal they have set themselves. Sometimes they perform such exploits in the heat of the chase, and sometimes in competing with each other, since everyone wishes to appear the best, exactly as, on the running track, one wants to overtake in order to win the race.

This is the original reference to Nordic skiing as a sport.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 36-37.

1733:     “In 1733, a certain Major Jens Henrik Emahausen produced the first formal regulations (for ski troops). They were the first of their kind, anywhere. Compared with the Finns, Swedes, and Russians, the Norwegian solders were better downhill skiers. Nonetheless, true to his times and his profession, he reduced everything to a drill movement.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 37-48.

1767:     “…Somehow the (Norwegian) army had to maintain the standard of recruits.

One who was notably concerned was General Carl Schack Rantzau, commander of the Norwegian army….He managed to appropriate the money to found prizes for regimental ski races. In July 1767 he issued the regulations:

Class 1…for those who, on a reasonable slope, can fire their guns and are most successfully in hitting certain prescribed targets at a range of 40 to 50 paces.

Class 2…for those who, on a reasonably wooded slope, are best at hurling themselves between the trees without…falling or breaking their skis.

Class 3…for those who, without riding or resting on their stick are best at running down the steepest slope without falling.

Class 4…for those who, on a level space, ski fastest over 2.5 kilometers with full equipment…with gun over the shoulder.

Rantzau’s four classes of competition define most events as we know them; a century and a half before they appeared in the outside world….Rantzau was merely codifying what already existed. He had been preceded two years earlier by an obscure manuscript. The author was one Grüner, identity unknown. He illustrated the various events by a series of naïve drawings, with accompanying captions. These anticipate Rantzau’s rules. In Grüner, however, the downhill race is timed.

Grüner added the ski-jump, not included in Rantzau’s rules. It was done ‘when a skier is forced to make a jump because of a drop or hole that he cannot avoid.’ It was what we call a terrain jump…This completed the repertoire of skiing events.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 49-50.

1771:     “Under the Danish crown, a Norwegian sense of identity had long been dormant. Since the middle of the eighteenth century, national consciousness had begun to stir. The central figure was a scholar named Gerhard Schøning…In 1771, he published the first modern history of Norway.

…Skiing, ‘was counted amongst the greatest arts in olden times.’ This is probably the earliest move, anywhere, to use sport as an agent of national identity.

Schøning was himself a practiced skier. He presented skiing as a civic virtue. He also showed the Norwegians to themselves as children of winter, with skiing as the emblem of their national identity.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 53-54

1826:     “One result (of the Napoleonic Wars) had been that, in 1809, Sweden lost Finland to Russia and, as compensation, had Norway transferred to her from Denmark. That happened in 1814, the year before Waterloo. By a bizarre twist of a tumultuous age, the Swedish regent was now a Frenchman: Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s marshals. He had turned against his erstwhile master and became the founder of the present royal family of Sweden. He duly annexed Norway but under surprisingly generous terms. He granted the Norwegians the domestic autonomy, the parliament and the constitution that they craved. After nearly a thousand years, Sweden was no longer a threat and Norway’s land border was pacified at last. Bernadotte, however, was taking no risks. In 1826, the Norwegian ski troops were finally disbanded.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 52.

1841:     “Scandinavians, particularly Norwegians, had been the first on skis in the continental United States in 1841. From a Midwestern base, they dominated American skiing with their Idræet culture until well in the 1920s. Having used skis as a means of locomotion for centuries, Scandinavians made a game and a sport of it. In the new country immigrant interest in racing across the countryside continued, but increasingly, jumping from constructed towers became the center piece of most competitions.”

E. John B. Allen, The Culture and Sport of Skiing From Antiquity to World War II. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007, 216.

1843:     “On 19 March 1843, a local newspaper in the North Norwegian port of Tromsø carried this historic advertisement:

INVITATION TO A RACE ON SKIS

On Tuesday afternoon the 21^st inst., weather and snow conditions permitting, a few people propose to test the speed of their ski and the extent of their powers in a race from the town hall to the well of Herr Ebeltoft’s farm on the other side of the island and back again to the starting point….

This marked the opening of an age. It was the first ever published announcement of a modern ski race. That is to say it was not military but civilian, open and for fun. Whether it actually took place as advertised is unclear but one race definitely did, on Thursday 30 March. There was another the following Sunday, 2 April. These were the first recorded modern ski races. On 6 April, the same local newspaper—Tromsø-Tidende, reported the proceedings. This was the first known press coverage of ski racing in the world; front-page exclusive into the bargain. It was the work of the editor himself, Otto Theodor Krohg…He was one of the skiing pioneers. Tall, massive, ebullient, big-boned, with bulbous features, he whimsically masqueraded under the nom de plume of “Little Theodor’.  

From a certain point of view, Tromsø was an odd place for such historic happenings. Well north of the Arctic Circle, it was then a small isolated fishing and sealing port. However, it did lie at a crossroads of skiing cultures. Lapps inhabited the hinterlands. Finns were part of the population. “Little Theodor” seemed made for this milieu….Besides being editor and chief reporter, he was the founder and owner of Tromsø-Tidende, wrote most of the copy himself and helped in the typesetting too. In holy orders, he was passionately devoted to music as well as skiing, and doubled as the local schoolmaster.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 65-67.

1849:     “…on 24 February 1849, several hundred miles to the south of Tromsø, a Trondheim newspaper had carried this advertisement: ‘Anyone who wishes to participate in a Ski-Tour…on Sunday (weather permitting) should meet in the Market Square at 1 pm.’

Trondheim, the ancient capital of Norway, became the cradle of organized ski touring, partly on account of the terrain. Rolling Nordic country, overlaid with conifers, reached almost to the centre of the town. This movement, however, like those in other fields, owed its origins to the burning dedication of one or two zealots.

The first advertisements were anonymous. Behind them, it eventually emerged, lay the bespectacled, unsoldierly figure of Carl Bonaparte Roosen, an engineer captain in the Norwegian army. He it was who single-handed had organized everything. This was symptomatic. Military officers were trailblazers in skiing. It was not merely for the sake of winter warfare. As regulars in a conscript army, they were much concerned with the health of recruits and the behaviour of the rising generation.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 68.

1856:     “The most consistent reporting of “snowshoeing” concerns two activities: mail delivery and racing. Hero status was conferred on John A. Thompson (originally from Tinn, Norway) because in 1856 he made winter communication between the Great Basin of Utah and the Pacific Coast efficient for the first time. “Snowshoe” Thompson’s 90-mile crossing from Genoa to Placerville over snowed-in mountain ranges was and instant success. Gradually skiing mailmen, Norwegians and others, became ubiquitous in the high country and were much appreciated.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 217

1856:     “The name of John A. “Snowshoe” Thompson was added to the roster in January 1956, when the Norwegian farmer from Putah Creek, California, made his first successful crossing from Placerville to Genoa, skiing from the snowline at Strawberry, California to the snowline at Woodfords, California, a short distance from the Nevada state line and Genoa. Soon he was the only man who would and could stand the mountain furies and he took over the Siberia of snow on that route for himself, leaving the shorter and less arduous ones to other men who were not so daring.

“Snow-shoe”—few ever knew that his right name was John A…Tostensen….When he was 10 years old, his father having died, his mother brought him, with his brother, to America. They were accompanied by a friend from Kongsberg, a city which gave its name to the town in Alpine County, California, which later became Snow-shoe Thompson’s home town of Silver Mountain. The Thompson family joined a group of 50 farmers from Tinns. In 1838 they left Telemarken on the long journey to America.

First the family settled in Illinois, then Missouri, then Iowa and back again to Illinois. In 1851, then 24, the man who was to become known as Snow-shoe joined a party headed for California’s gold fields. He mined for a time in several camps and later, when success did not crown his efforts, turned to agriculture.”

William B. Berry, Lost Sierra: Gold, Ghosts & Skis. Western America SkiSport Museum, Soda Springs, CA, 1991, 73.

1857:     “They (Sierra natives) have been seriously handicapped in their efforts to give their legends authentic foundation by the deplorable scarcity of contemporaneous newspaper accounts of early days in that region. The editions of local papers were small. Moreover, almost every scrap of newspaper found immediate use in the domestic economy of that time and place. Consequently, the existing files are incomplete, and it probable that the legendary beginnings of ski-racing at LaPorte, in 1857, may never be verified.”

David C. Mills, “California Pioneers on Skis”, American Ski Annual (1938-39), 35-36.

Gold Rush Skiing in General:          “This Californian snowshoeing had no effect on the rest of the country. In spite of all the evidence of organized, modern sport: rules and regulations, timers, starters, course layers, clubs, uniforms, record keeping, champions, etc, it was merely a thing of the moment to pass the winter away in companionable—for the most part—and competitive enjoyment. …When Californians inquired about the Midwestern National Ski Association’s tournament, the Norwegians simply did not bother to reply, so no Californian skiing was tested in the larger American arena.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 218

1860:     “Up and down the country, skiing as recreation had begun to take root. All that, however, was in the provinces. The capital city lagged behind. Only in February 1860, more than a decade after Trondheim, did Morgenbladet, a leading Christiania newspaper and therefore part of the national press, carry the first advertisement for a ski tour. It was probably the start of organized skiing in Christiania. The tour was to Maridalen, on the northern outskirts of the city”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 69.

1861:     “On New Year's Eve, 1861, Illustreret Nyhedsblad, a popular Christiania magazine, distributed to its subscribers a supplement that included Bernt Lund's poem "Trysil-Knud" about the mythical 18th century ski-trooper from Østerdalen in Eastern Norway.  The dashing figure of Knud, who bested all in a ski jumping competition (merrily firing off a musket shot while in the air) and won a legendary bet by covering a distance of 120 kilometer faster than a horse and sled, provided precisely the heroic image needed by the nascent efforts to spur skiing”.

Einar Sunde, “1860s Norway: Breakout for Skiing as a Sport”, 2009 International Ski History Congress, Mammoth Lakes, CA, April 1, 2009, 1.

1860s:   “Why Norway and why the 1860s? 

          First, Norway's geography meant that farms and villages were isolated and communication difficult, particularly during the long winters.  As a result, not only was the utilitarian use of skis an everyday fact of life, but there existed a great variety of skis and styles of skiing, each adapted to local use.3 

          Second, the rise of Norwegian nationalism in mid-century, and the memory of the ski troops and their exploits, combined to create a powerful image ready to be exploited by Norwegian political and cultural figures, including ski enthusiasts.4

          Thirdly, the industrial revolution brought increasing prosperity in the period 1843 to 1870, leading toward greater urbanization, wider circulation of popular media such as newspapers and magazines and a population with the time (and need) for games, amusements and physical exercise.5

          Finally, new European ideas on fitness and physical exercise (Johan Gutsmuths' 1804 edition of his seminal work "Gymnastics for Youth" included references to skiing in Norway)

were spreading among the urban population.  The Norwegian military officers and like-minded civilians who assumed leading roles in the organizational aspects of skiing in the 1860s were familiar with these movements and theories; they simply adapted them to Norwegian circumstances”.

Sunde, “1860s Norway”, 1-2.

1860s:   “Climate change also hindered progress. The Little Ice Age had ended. Temperatures were rising. Winters were unreliable, and the limit of dependable snow had begun receding to the heights”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 81.

January 1861:     “…formation of a national umbrella organization called "Centralforeningen for Udbredelse av Legemsovelser og Vaabenbrug" [The Central Association for the Spread of Physical Exercise and the Use of Weapons].  It quickly became known as just "Centralforeningen."  As the name implies, the goal was by no means limited to rifle shooting, the purpose being "to promote volunteer-based physical activity and weapons training, to support these, to utilize the energy of diverse persons from various parts of the country, and lead them toward the common goal of securing the national defense."”

Sunde, “1860s Norway”, 2-3.

January 22, 1862:                               “…the first documented ski race after those at Tromsø in 1843. That was on 22 January 1862 in Trysil…Its crucial advance was to have been organized by a dedicated sporting body. Moreover, unlike the local newspaper of the Tromsø races, Trysil was covered by the national press. It was the first truly modern ski race.

In a very different part of the country from Tromsø, Trysil lies inland among the rolling landscape of the south-east, with its eskers, the prehistoric moraines, as a reminder of the Ice Age. It had a long skiing tradition. It was the home of a skiing legend in the form of a semi-mythical figure call Trysil-Knud. He was the hero of a poem, the denouement of which was a downhill run somewhere on the west coast. Having previously hung his coat on a handy bush, he plucked it up and put it on without stopping, at full speed, before jumping into a boat at the bottom of the slope and vanishing down the fjord.

Morgenbladet covered the Trysil race…

The track consisted of a long slope, the upper part of which had a gradient of about 35 degrees, below this a flat runout, and thereafter a slope rising on the other side, where judges and spectators were placed. At the bottom of the long slope…snow had been piled up to form an artificial lip with a sudden takeoff which, to a considerable degree, increased the difficulty of an already steep slope. The object was to run down the slope on ski without falling, in addition to which the judges required easy movement and a natural posture.

This was the first reported ski-jumping competition, admittedly combined with a downhill race.

The Trysil winner was one Halvor Dahl. That too made history. He was the first ski champion to be known by name”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 77.

February 16, 1862:             “The next known event in Christiania occurred two years later. Again the Morgenbladet carried a small advertisement. Now the venue was Grorud, to the east of the city, in more attractive terrain. The Press covered the proceedings extensively….What is more, Illustret Nyhedsblad, a weekly picture journal, produced an illustrated feature, the first time that skiing was so honored, anywhere.

Some thirty skiers gathered at the Christiania railway station for the short train journey out to Grorud…it was the first example of a dedicated railway carriage for a skiing party”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 69.

January 21, 1863:               “Trysil led the way again in 1863. That event, too, was historic. A girl wrote asking permission to take part, ‘not to win any of the prizes,’ as Morgenbladet reported, ‘because these could only be won by men and boys…but in a village where skiing is just as vital for women as for men if they are to get out of the house, it might be of interest to see an example of women’s accomplishments in the use of skis.’…The girl’s name was Ingrid Olsdatter Vestbyen. She was 16 years old. These details are important. Ingrid was the first recorded woman ski racer, and ski-jumper to boot”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 75-76.

March 1866:        “…the first ski race in Christiania, the capital…In another link between the rise of skiing and the birth of popular journalism, a Christiania newspaper called Aftenbladet organized the event…Skiing was introduced by officials returned from postings to the provinces. The process of revival had been speeded by the university.

Aftenbladet’s race was run on a slope called Iversløkken. Half-forgotten, forlorn and overgrown today, it commemorates the early days of modern skiing. It had a vertical drop of only 30 m. For contemporary skiers, it was enough….A crowd of 2,000 packed the course—in a city with a population of only 40,000”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 79-80.

1867:    Most competitions were downhill runs with one or more jumps, with judging being based on style and other subjective factors (though Trondheim's race in 1864 based results on time only).  Early in 1867, Centralforeningen promulgated guidelines for competitions.  The key changes included (i) setting a course that required participants to ski downhill over jumps and then over mixed terrain back to the top of the hill, (ii) requiring that the course be run three times, and (iii) adding time elapsed as a key judging element (though the skiers continued to be also judged on the basis of style and technique).17  It then put its new rules to the test by directly organizing competitions at Iversløkka in the capital in both 1867 and 1868, with the latter proving to be the breakthrough event due in no small part to the acclaimed performance of the Sondre Norheim from Telemark. 

Sunde, “1860s Norway”, 4.

1867:     “The race (in Telemark province, west of the capital) was in two parts. One was a simple downhill run, ‘long and steep’; the other was a slope with a jump in the middle. …This was the first time that the jump became an event in its own right…it was also a return to an older tradition of landing on a slope rather than the flat.”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 82.

1868:     ‘On February 9, despite the Sabbatarians, a Sunday—Centralforeningen then organized the third race in Christiania; again on and around the Iversløkken slope. For the first time, the race was deliberatively representative…Invitations were sent out all over the country.

…The winner was a newcomer called Sondre Ouversen Nordheim. …Nordheim came from Morgedal in Telemark. He was the first among equals. On time alone, there were three Telemark skiers in the first six. It was, however, not their placing that inspired but as that same journalist put it, ‘the effortless certainty with which they shot down, without touching the ground with their stick.’

Like most Telemark skiers, Nordheim was poor and belonged to the land. He scratched a living as a country carpenter making spare parts for the handlooms that were still a staple of almost every farm.

Morgedal was the remote valley from which came the triumphant Telemark skiers at the Christiania race. Elegance was their virtue…So fragmented was the nation still, that only now was their reputation beginning to seep out from its native valleys into a wider world.

…It was…the Christiania race of 1868 that opened the domination of the Telemark school. This was because it was held in the capital, with concomitant press coverage”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 82-83.

Mid 1870s to early 1890s:                “Norway's economy was hit hard during the “depression” from mid 1870s to the early 1890s. GDP stagnated, particularly during the 1880s, and prices fell until 1896. This stagnation is mirrored in the large-scale emigration from Norway to North America in the 1880s. At its peak in 1882 as many as 28,804 persons, 1.5 percent of the population, left the country. All in all, 250,000 emigrated in the period 1879-1893, equal to 60 percent of the birth surplus. Only Ireland had higher emigration rates than Norway between 1836 and 1930, when 860,000 Norwegians left the country.

The long slowdown can largely been explained by Norway's dependence on the international economy and in particular the United Kingdom, which experienced slower economic growth than the other major economies of the time. As a result of the international slowdown, Norwegian exports contracted in several years, but expanded in others. A second reason for the slowdown in Norway was the introduction of the international gold standard. Norway adopted gold in January 1874, and due to the trade deficit, lack of gold and lack of capital, the country experienced a huge contraction in gold reserves and in the money stock. The deflationary effect strangled the economy. Going onto the gold standard caused the appreciation of the Norwegian currency, the krone, as gold became relatively more expensive compared to silver. A third explanation of Norway's economic problems in the 1880s is the transformation from sailing to steam vessels. Norway had by 1875 the fourth biggest merchant fleet in the world. However, due to lack of capital and technological skills, the transformation from sail to steam was slow. Norwegian ship owners found a niche in cheap second-hand sailing vessels. However, their market was diminishing, and finally, when the Norwegian steam fleet passed the size of the sailing fleet in 1907, Norway was no longer a major maritime power”.

Ola Grytten, "The Economic History of Norway," in Robert Whaples (Ed.), EH.net Encyclopedia, Economic History Association, March 16, 2008. URL: http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/grytten.norway, 4.

1877:     “Some other institution had to take over the promotion of the sport. This turned out to be the Christiania Ski Club. It was formed in 1877 by a group of young men from the upper classes. …The club grew out of informal skiing circles. Wholly serious they were not. One playground of these bringers of jollity was a slope known at Kastelbakken—“Castle Hill’ outside the western city limits at a farm called Huseby. It was longer and steeper than the other local slopes; besides which, they were being engulfed by rapid urban building. It was at Huseby that the Christiania Ski Club decided to organize the next representative ski race”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 89.

February 12, 1879:             “That first Huseby race was held on the 12 February 1879…With the aid of extra railway trains, some 10,000 spectators had gathered—almost one tenth of the city’s population.

…with the slope deliberately tramped down, the going was decidedly ‘firm and fast,’ but impossible it was not. Jumps of over 15 m were the rule…Improved technique was part of the answer, but also the contour of the slope.

This allowed critically longer jumps in relative safety. The trajectory was new and proved to be the key. Previously, it would drop the skier back to earth like a stone. This one was such that, at touchdown, it was quite tangential to the natural contour of the outrun. This reduced the shock of landing. …Intentionally or not, this was the first modern ski-jump.

…Yet again, the men of Telemark swept the board. They took the first five places. …Hitherto, most skiers had simply allowed gravity to carry them over the jump but, in the words of one journalist, they ‘crouched down some 10 to 15 m before taking off, so that at the edge of the jump they could (uncoil and) give themselves extra speed and thus achieve the greatest possible length’. In other words, a recognizably modern jump”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 90-91.

March 8, 1879:    “[The author,…himself a Telemarking] gave an explanation of Telemark skiing terminology. This arose from the local dialect, a world away from the Danish-Norwegian spoken by the educated classes in the towns. The terms were not known elsewhere:

The track of…skis in the snow…is called…a ‘laam’ (plural ‘laamir’). A clear distinction is drawn between a race with a jump, and one without. The former is called ‘hoppelaam’ [literally ‘jumping stick’]…The other kind of race [is a] ‘slalaam’.

That was the first appearance in print of the word which we now know as slalom….For the record, Faedrelandet was the name of the journal.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 91-92.

1870s up: Influence of Telemark:   “Travel to Morgedal and you will find signs announcing it, or Telemark generally, as the "cradle of skiing," a statement that received a degree of official endorsement in connection with the 1952 Winter Olympics, when the Olympic torch was lit in Sondre Norheim's cabin at Øverbø in Telemark (and repeated for the 1960 and 1994 Winter Games).  Recent scholarship in Norway, starting with the publication of På Trønderski in 1988, has taken strong issue with this.  Among others, Kjell Haarstad, argues that Telemark in general and Norheim in particular, have received much too much credit and that the claims by Fritz Huitfeldt, and ski historians such as Jacob Vaage, to the effect that Telemark was the "cradle" of skisport, are unsubstantiated and misrepresent the historical record.

               On the one hand, it has been long overdue that the rich history of skiing throughout Norway is further researched and documented.  And Haarstad makes some good points in noting the lack of written records and in challenging specific statements made by Huitfeldt, Vaage and others to the effect that Norheim was the one to introduce or invent osier bindings around the heel for greater control.  Without getting into the issue of what exactly Huitfeldt and others wrote or intended, it has been shown that ossier heel bindings were in use long before Norheim.  The problem with Haarstad's argument is that the skiers from Telemark, when they participated, did extremely well as a group and, when they competed against skiers from other regions, someone from Telemark usually won (and if they did not win they nevertheless generated the most excitement and admiration).  The newspaper account of the 1864 competition at Lund outside Kristiansand, won by Nils Hougo from Telemark, is a representative sample:

                  Especially impressive was a young man from Telemark with his daring jumps over the precipices. Powerfully built and supple, he completed the jumps with his legs and skis  pulled up and arms spread out and, in the instant he again came back to earth, he was ready for the next jump. He was like a steel spring, alternatively bending down and then springing up.

They did the same when they came to Kristiania, led by Norheim.  There remain fascinating questions concerning the equipment and culture of skiing in Telemark that are only partially answered by the oral stories and traditions collected years later by Einar Stoltenberg and Torjus Loupedalen, and likewise for other parts of Norway.  But the fact remains that by their example, the skiers from Telemark, as a group, consistently proved to be best within the context of the way skiing developed in the 1860 and thereby both inspired others to participate and aspire to even greater performances, and defined the basic line of development of skiing for the next generation.  The all-around skill demonstrated so well by Norheim in 1868 - the blend of strength and skill in jumping, downhill, cross-country and turning - would remain the model of the ideal skier well into the 20th Century and the age of specialization”. 

Sunde, “1860s Norway”, 9-10.

1882:     “More than half a century ago, a boy of sixteen came to northern New Hampshire from Norway. …Olaf Olesen came to Berlin where he found mountain ranges whose winter slopes were like his homeland. Here, in 1882, with pine boards from the saw mill, he fashioned the first pair of skis ever made in New England.

Olaf and his father had made skis in Norway. In Berlin he made them for a group of friends and countrymen who, in the winter of 1882, formed the “Skiklubben”—the first ski club in America.

Nansen Ski Club, “1938 Eastern Elimination Contests”, New England Ski Museum Collection 1983L.098.001, page 4.

August 15 to September 28, 1888:  “After the difficulties in getting onto the landmass of Greenland itself, the crossing was very successful. …they slogged across the inland ice, and this was duly reported in the 6,600 copies of Nansen’s book Paa Ski over Grønland. …Other explorers had taken skis but had not used them as the main means for crossing the snow. Nansen, therefore, gave to the skis a special place in his book. And they were indeed special: two pairs made of oak and seven of birch. The birch ones had thin steel sheaths on the bottom as well as small holes for attaching skins. …But the success of the expedition seemed to prove the utility of these Norwegian skis, and the vital fact was that Norwegians had shown the world what skiers could accomplish. Even in Norway, there were few who had realized what an impact it was to have.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 60.

September 1888: “Around 16 September, they reached the summit of the ice cap. It leveled out and then began gradually to slope down. A fortnight later, and 150 km further on, the gradient was such that Nansen rigged sails on the sledges to run before an easterly wind that sprang up. Then it was a matter not of hauling but steering the sledges like ships, albeit on a choppy sea. ‘The whole day passed and we had no time even to eat. It was such fun to ski’, as Balto artlessly put it. They covered nearly 70 km; nearly five times their daily average run so far. This anticipated the wind-powered parachutes of latter-day skiing adventurers. Almost casually, Nansen and his men had demythologized the polar environment and revolutionized polar exploration.

The first crossing of Greenland came to an end on 21 September 1888. Then the snow finally gave out, exposing the harsh bare blue surface of the ice cap, dome debouching in a broken, congealed cataract down to the Ameralik fjord on the west coast below. Nansen and his men had come 400 km from Umivik. Of that, they had skied 250 km continuously in 19 days. The whole journey had taken just under six weeks.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 138.

1888:     “Nansen had set out to prove that skis could be used in polar regions. He had dramatically done so, but it was in the obverse that his reputation fully flowered. It was as a skier, not an explorer that Nansen had acquired instant fame. On the one hand he had turned polar exploration into a branch of sport; on the other, through polar exploration, he had taken skiing out of northern mists and revealed it to the outside world. It was a seminal achievement. This was not Nansen’s original purpose but he too had to live with the law of unintended consequences”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 140.

1888:     “Fridtjof Nansen’s great feat of crossing the southern third of Greenland on skis in 1888 was hardly utilitarian in the accepted sense of the word. …Nansen was not from the bønder, but from the well-connected Christiania circles, although the smart set never embraced him fully. Always “something of a soloist,” as a friend put it, Nansen wore his explorer’s outfit and wide-brimmed hat around town.

Yet Nansen embodied a stark form of Idræt. He was vigorous, and healthy, and appeared to be democratic, too, One could hardly find more of a social mix than among the Greenland expedition members. Nansen’s crossing of Greenland symbolized the national importance of skis, the healthy challenges of nature that would move Norwegian nationalism, the Norwegian nation and, after his polar trip, the Norwegian state to the fore and make it a political reality in 1905. These were immense undertakings achieved on skis, and he came home honored and bemedaled from Denmark, Sweden, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, He had become a Norwegian icon, about whom there could be only one reading: nationalistic.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 56.

February 7, 1888:                               “…the first 50 km race—the skiers’ marathon. It was part of the Huseby program that season. The race was run on 7 February. The declared aim was ‘to encourage young people to train sensibly, and to have a proper understanding of the benefits of skiing’.

Predictably, Torjus Hemmestveit won, so the prize was once again to Telemark. It was not as sinple as it sounded. His time was nearly four and a half hours, twice that of victors over the distance after a century.

The significance of that 50 km race was that it was separate, with prizes of it own, divorced from jumping, and decided exclusively on time.

This program accomplished the final separation of cross-country and jumping disciplines.

Another innovation at those Huseby races of 1888 was the appearance of various competitors ‘thinly clad in knitwear jerseys and ditto trousers’, to quote one reporter. This was obviously copied from speed skaters; another locally favored spectacle. It was the first recorded use of a specialized outfit for ski racing…”

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 114.

1880s & later:     “The skisport comprised two activities: cross-country and jumping. The utilitarian locomotion was the base for competitive racing, but immigrants tired quickly of the sweat and the lack of heroics a cross-country run demanded. Jumping became ever more important as leaps neared the magic 100-foot mark and drew large crowds of spectators. The meets required organization. In the 1880s clubs had been formed out of the need to represent communities at local carnivals. With the advent of easy railroad transportation, clubs hosted much larger meets, and more permanent organizations emerged.

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 220.

1890:     “Of all the sports of Norway, ‘skilöbning’ is the most national and characteristic , and I cannot think that I go too far when I claim for it, as practiced in our country, a position in the very first rank of the sports of the world. I know no form of sport which so evenly develops the muscles, which renders the body so strong and elastic, which teaches so well the qualities of dexterity and resource, which in an equal degree calls for decision and resolution , and which gives the same vigor and exhilaration to mind and body alike. Where can one find a healthier and purer delight than when on a brilliant winter day one binds one’s ‘ski’ to one’s feet and takes one’s way out into the forest? Can there be anything more beautiful than the northern winter landscape, when the snow lies foot-deep, spread as a soft white mantel over field and wood and hill? Where will one find more freedom and excitement than when one glides swiftly down the hillside through the trees, one’s cheek brushed by the sharp cold air and frosted pine branches, and one’s eye, brain, and muscles alert and prepared to meet every unknown obstacle and danger which the next instant may throw in one’s path? Civilisation is, as it were, washed clean from the mind and left far behind with the city atmosphere and city life; one’s whole being is, so to say, wrapped in one’s ‘ski’ and the surrounding nature. There is something in the whole which develops soul and not body alone, and the sport is perhaps of far greater national importance than is generally supposed.”

Fridtjof  Nansen, The First Crossing of Greenland. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1890, 83-84.

1895-1896:           “With the Fram embedded in ice, Nansen, and the carefully selected Hjalmar Johansen, left the ship on March 14, 1895, taking the stronger and well-prepared skis with them. The record of the struggle over difficult ice, in deep and loose snow, sometimes sticking mercilessly to the base of the skis, the abandoning of extra gear, the use of skis underneath the sleeping bags to keep clear of pools of water, all made for gripping reading. …They turned away from the Pole at 86 degrees 14—the farthest north reached by any man. This was the stuff of Viking deeds mitigated by the marvelous chance meeting on June 17, 1896 with Frederick Jackson, the English gentleman adventurer accoutered in a checked suit. “I raised my hat,” wrote Nansen. “How do you do?” Once Jackson realized it was Nansen, “By Jove! I am devilish glad to see you!” A snowy reenactment of Livingstone and Stanley. The front page of the Illustrated London News caught the attitudes precisely: “To have approached the North Pole within 226 miles is a grand feat of enterprise.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 61.

1905:     “In 1905, five clubs founded the National Ski Association of America. Two years later there were twenty-seven, all but one in the Midwest.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 220.

1905:     Four years after its origin, the club’s name was change to the “Berlin Mills Ski Club”; and in 1905 to the “Skiklubben Fritjof Nansen” in honor of the intrepid explorer who used skis on the first trip across Greenland.”

Nansen Ski Club, “1938 Eastern Elimination Contests”, New England Ski Museum Collection 1983L.098.001.

1909:     “For it was at Vermont Academy on Lincoln’s Birthday in 1909 that the first Carnival was held, a full year prior to the first Dartmouth Carnival…

There were both snowshoe and ski races. There were races for both distance and speed. There were gliding races on skis. And the most fun of al were the obstacle races where the contestants went over coal piles, through barrels, and under fences. Even then, as today, the most thrilling event was ski jumping.

The Carnival came about when “Pop” Taylor…felt that competition would stir more students to come out and enjoy the beauty of winter.

Robert M. Campbell, “Grand-Daddy of Winter Carnivals”, American Ski Annual and Skiing Journal XXXVII, 3 (February 1953), 43.

After World War I:             “During the 1914-1918 conflict, Nansen…led the Norwegian delegation to the League of Nations. He became exactly the right man to head food relief to Russia since recognition of the Bolshevik government was quite impossible by the West. He was also given charge of the repatriation of prisoners, almost half of which were Russian, and then to deal with the famine.

His organizing of food relief for the new Soviet Union placed him in political and diplomatic jeopardy but he was successful. As High Commissioner for the repatriation of prisoners and the First World War, and with the creation of the Nansen passports for refugees, he is remembered worldwide.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 57.

1922:     “The world recognized his (Nansen’s) efforts in awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 57.

1923:     Winged Ski Trail from Brattleboro VT was partially cut. “A party of nine members of the Brattleboro Outing Club marked between five and six miles of the Winged Ski trail yesterday with the three-inch discs which will eventually mark the trail from the Brooks House to the Somerset reservoir, where it joins the Long Trail”.

“Mark Section of Winged Ski Trail”, unknown newspaper, April 3, 1923, Fred Harris Scrapbooks, NESM Collection 1982L.016.006

March 1924:        “Five young Brattleboro high school students, members of the Brattleboro Outing club, who left Brattleboro last week Monday Afternoon at 2 o’clock for Rutland on a skiing trip over the Winged Ski Trail, arrived in Rutland Friday evening somewhat tired but enthusiastic over their first ski trip which averaged about 105 miles and during which several thrilling experiences were had”.

“Brattleboro Ski Party Lost Trail in Stratton”, unknown newspaper, March 7, 1924, Fred Harris Scrapbooks, NESM Collection 1982L.016.006

1926:     “Alf Halvorsen—ever one to publicize Berlin—dreamed up the idea of having a ski race to celebrate the opening of the Berlin Winter Carnival in February 1926. Bob Reid, then 24 years old, and Helmar Oakerlund, a 38-year-old Swede, both belonging to the Nansen Club, were the only contestants.

…Thankfully on Friday the 13^th the weather cleared. Reid led Oakerlund the 25 miles to Bethel where they bedded down for the night. The next day the “race” began in earnest, and at 3:37 PM Bob Reid crossed the line in front of the Berlin City Hall to the plaudits of the crowd and the delight of the newspapermen. Oakerlund, giving away fourteen years don’t forget, was only eight minutes behind. Halvorsen got more publicity than he bargained for, the Berlin Carnival was a grand success, but the overwhelming difficulties of the race made it clear that it should not be an annual fixture.”

E. John B. Allen, “Skiing: A Hundred Miles of Hell”, Magnetic North, 4, 3 (Winter 1986), 37, 40.

1929:     “Skiing has come to be known chiefly thru ski jumping, as far as organized tournaments ae concerned. Too much credit cannot be given for the skill and courage required to make a successful ski jumper. Much of the thrill of those loving ski tournaments centers in the jump. However, the skill of cross-country racing has been too much overlooked. …Too little attention has been given—too little attention even now is being given—to cross-country running. In many clubs today the exclusive attention is paid to ski jumping. …Proof that this country is deficient in cross-country racers is not difficult to find. Most European countries outdistance the teams of the United States in the winter Olympic cross-country races. Tournament after tournament in the different divisions of the United States recognized by the National Ski Association makes no pretense of scheduling ski races. In most of the local ski clubs training of skiers is ignored or receives little intelligent consideration. Fortunately in a few communities the leaders recognize the superior character of a skiing program including both ski running and ski jumping…”

Harry Wade Hicks, “The Next Twenty-five Years”, US Eastern Amateur Ski Association Year Book (1929), 25.

1930:     “Then the FIS duly reconsidered the Alpine events at its next conference, on 24 February 1930 in Oslo…During the 1929 fixture at Zakopane, a gloomy and scattered resort in the Polish Tatra mountains, the FIS had run a downhill race as a demonstration event.  ...As a result of the Zakopane experiment, when the FIS met in 1930, opposition to the straight downhill had subsided. The slalom remained the issue.

…Holmquist, Østgaard and Hamilton were, after all, men of the world. Since the turn of the century, they had been in the Alps and recognized that different terrain bred different styles not to mention different personalities. No doubt they rued the spread of skiing and would have preferred to keep it under control as a private badge of national identity. Now that it had escaped, it had taken on a life of its own. They decided to live and let live. If the British and Alpine countries wished to rumba down the slalom to perdition, that was their concern. The Norwegians, Swedes and Finns, having privately agreed, washed their hands of the affair. Both Alpine events were recognized without dissent.

From start to finish, Arnold Lunn had not spoken a word, on the floor that is. He had been muzzled by a Swiss called Walter Amstutz, the power behind the throne. …Quietly, behind the scenes, like the Swiss he was, he exerted more influence than the combative Lunn himself. In Oslo, it was their jointly conceived rules that the FIS accepted”.

Huntford, Two Planks and a Passion, 344-345.

1930:     “Thus the 1930 FIS meeting had high potential for misunderstanding and even anger, or compromise and acceptance. It turned out to be something of an anticlimax because the delegates were much preoccupied over the arrangements for the Winter Olympics to be held at Lake Placid, New York, in 1932. The Alpine disciplines were discussed in a loaded committee with Lieutenant Helset as the lone nay-sayer. On the floor of the full meeting, according one observer, Östgaard had “seen the handwriting on the wall, and thought he might aw well give in graciously as be outvoted.” The “Peace of Oslo” was signed at last, and Lunn raised his little Union Jack. But, Östgaard assured his Norwegian audience in Aftenposten, it was not to be concluded that the Norwegian Ski Federation had any intention of introducing downhill and slalom races, nor that the country would be represented in those disciplines in foreign meets.”

Allen, Culture and Sport of Skiing, 194.

1936:     “The Jackson Ski and Outing Club (J.S.O.C.) was formed to organize and coordinate winter and outdoor activities in Jackson. The JSOC was responsible for: teaching people to ski…running dogsled races and cross country ski races, running jumping competitions at a hill behind Thor Lodge, now the Drifter’s Ski Club….”

Thomas Perkins, “Jackson Ski Touring Foundation: An Historical Perspective”, July 1988, New England Ski Museum Collection; 1988L.042.001.

1936:     First cross-country race held in Jackson, NH?

“26^th Jackson X-C”, Skier X, 6 (March 1962), 26.

Late 1930s:          “And, in the late 30s, Jackson was one of a very few ski resorts in this country to sponsor an annual cross-country race, attracting some of the best langlaufers around. It would have made for better communication if a few more of us had been able to speak Finnish.

The Jackson course was a tough one. It started in the Village, heading up the Wildcat Valley on the Eagle Mountain side, to cross the river well beyond Gill Bridge to come into the West Pastures on Black Mountain, crossing over the ridge to the East Pastures to eventually pass over Tin Mountain for a long downhill return to the village. It seems that that was overlong and over-difficult, and little by little the course was drawn in, shorter and closer to town.

Briefly, too, Jackson had a jumping event, held in connection with winter carnivals staged by the Jackson Ski & Outing Club. The jump was a slightly modified natural slope behind Thor Lodge (now the Drifters). …Birger Ruud, still recognized as one of history’s best four-event skiers, visited Jackson (was it 1938?) and stayed with the Holmers, who owned the lodge at that time. John Holmer was a professional jumper, and he and his wife also operated the Thor Restaurant in Boston, across from Oscar Hambro’s where many of us bought our first modern skis.

Birger was inveigled into trying John’s little hill. He took off neatly, sailed well out beyond the outrun to land on the flat and establish a hill record. Unfortunately no records have survived and neither has the hill”.

Dick May, “Tales From the Ski Sage”, The Mountain Ear (January 3, 1986), 6; New England Ski Museum Collection 1986L.020.001.

1938:     “It is illuminating to review the answers from divisional officers in response to the following request:

“Indicate opposite each of the following forms of skiing (Ski jumping, Slalom, Downhill, Recreational, Cross-Country) the relative importance attached to them as measured by the attention given them in local club meets, sectional or divisional tournaments in your area, the training provided for young skiers who wish to progress in cross-country racing, or the provision of skiing facilities such as slopes and trails.”

The significant resulting fact is that cross-country skiing is uniformly placed last, and the interpretation coming with the reports indicates a low last.

…Officers of most local clubs are not interested enough to organize training for cross-country running, do not dignify this branch of the sport by emphasizing its importance, or providing trophies or prizes or expense money for runners, and have yielded to the conviction that it is not worthwhile to bother about it since it does not make a popular appeal, as does jumping or downhill racing.

...officers and governing committees of the divisional associations also neglect promotion of cross-country skiing, giving indifferent encouragement to this branch of the sport.

…A few colleges have provided coaching for competition. In like manner some of the more progressive preparatory schools, and specially in the last few years some high schools have provided experienced instructors who have been able to organize and coach balanced teams.”

Harry Wade Hicks, “Cross-Country Skiing,” American Ski Annual (1938-39), 110-122.

1944:     “On a hot fall day in 1944, up on Mt. Mansfield, a Norwegian and an Austrian challenged each other to a unique race.

The Austrian was Sepp Ruschp, then, as now, the operator of the Mt. Mansfield Ski Area. The Norwegian was Erling Strom, operator of one of the first ski schools in America and a noted ski mountaineer.

Ruschp, Strom and a group of other men, all considered too old for combat duty in the waning days of World War II, were mowing the brambles and brush on the Nosedive, one of Mansfield’s tougher ski trails.

They were preparing it for another season, and Ruschp wanted to finish the job that afternoon. They had already cut the highest part of the slope, where the brush was lowest. Sepp Ruschp was about 36, Erling Strom was in his 40s.

…The course they decided upon, one Strom had apparently already considered as a good race route, was designed to combine both alpine and cross-country racing: the mountain’s four-mile toll road, which winds from near the summit to the foot of the slope, and the valley’s hills and dales; total distance—about 11 miles.

They named it the Stowe Derby, after the Parsenn Derby in Davos Switzerland, one of the old and famous long downhill races.”

John Lazenby, “Stowe Derby: Cross-Country with a Downhill Slant”, Nordic World Magazine, 4, 5 (January 1976), 24-25.

1948:     “Last month’s convention of the Eastern Amateur Ski Association proved, among other things, that ski touring is on its way back. I think there are two factors behind the revival of interest: nostalgia for old times, and the desire of the modern skier to break away from the monotony of a downhill-only diet.

There’s much to be said for this venerable phase of the sport. It flourished in the Laurentians on terrain not dissimilar to ours. Here in Franconia it was popular long before a downhill track was thought of. How can it be brought back?

The unplowed highways which sleighs once kept well packed are salted and sanded now; so the first move in the rejuvenation must be the construction and marking of new touring trails.

Sel Hannah, “Monotonous Downhill Diet May Revive Art of Touring”, Ski News 10, 4 (December 15, 1948), 2.

1952:     “We have talked ourselves into wanting more luxuries with our skiing every year, and now we squawk           because skiing has become too expensive for us. In order to progress in the direction of more economical ski vacations we need to turn back the clock twenty years; or we can look at our Scandinavian cousins today and see the same thing.

…But there are vast possibilities for more well-planned touring trails situated to take full advantage of lifts.

…I was commissioned by Roland Palmedo to lay out and cut a trail from the top of the Mad River lift south to the top of Mt. Ellen (four miles), and from there to the covered bridge near Ulla Lodge, 3,000 vertical feet and five miles below. I did the laying out and got a group from the Putney Work Camp to do the cutting. The route from Stark’s Nest, beside the lift, to Mt. Ellen follows the Long Trail most of the way.”

John S. Holden, “Try Touring, It Costs Less”, American Ski Annual and Skiing Journal 36, 1 (1952), 95-96.

1953:     “…before cross-country becomes as popular as it deserves, there will have to be better trails. Trail and hut committees have worked hard and well, but it is possible they have overplayed the scenic aspects of cross-country and touring, with the result that many trails are pretty inaccessible. Cross-country should be as easily available as the commercial downhill areas.

Finally, and most important, we need better equipment”.

David Judson, “Consider the Step-Child”, American Ski Annual and Skiing Journal, 37, 1 (1953), 92.

1953:     “In looking back over last winter’s cross-country and combined results one cannot but help seeing several promising things. One is the number of competitors in races; this figure has greatly increased to a point where it is quite common to find fields of from seventy-five to one hundred competitors in our major races. Out of this group will come more and better competitors for the larger meets than when most races saw only a handful of competitors.”

C.A. Merrill, “Increase in Cross Country Skiing”, Eastern Ski Bulletin, 11, 1 (November 1, 1953), 8.

1954-58:               Joe Pete Wilson was at St. Lawrence; Otto Schniebs was the ski team coach. In his senior year, Otto resigned to go to Whiteface. “Otto’s knowledge of cross-country fascinating. He picked me out and got a scholarship.”

“Otto had a very gentle touch and a quiet manner, but was definitely in charge. Out of respect for Otto, if people didn’t agree with him they didn’t say anything. He was definite in his manner. He had a wonderful sense of humor. At the start of a big downhill race, he slapped me on the back and almost knocked me down: “You good strong boy, you stand up and go.””

Joe Pete Wilson, Telephone interview with Jeff Leich, May 5, 2009.

December 5, 1961:              “The sad fact is that it looks more and more as if our national sport is not playing at all—but watching. We have become more and more, not a nation of athletes, but a nation of spectators.

The result of the shift from participation to –if I may use the word—spectation, is all too visible in the physical condition of our population despite our much publicized emphasis on school athletics. Our own children lag behind European children in physical fitness.

I believe that as a nation we should give our full support for example, to our Olympic development program. …we should, as a country, set a goal…emphasize this most important part of life—the opportunity to exercise, to participate in physical activity, and generally to produce a standard of excellence for our country which will enable our athletes to win the Olympics. But more important than that, which will give us a nation of vigorous men and women.

There are more important goals than winning contests, and that is to improve on a broad level the health and vitality of our people.”

John F. Kennedy, quoted in ““Spectation” in Sports Decried by President Kennedy”, Skier, X, 5 (February 1962), 15.

1962:     “In 1962 I and some of my friends, like Roland Palmedo, who was one of the founders of the Ski Patrol, George Froelich and others got together to talk about forming an organization to promote ski touring. We said, “Let’s do it now.” …The idea was to promote purely recreational, non-competitive skiing for anybody, any age group. Cross country was also doing that but to a large degree it is connected with racing and excellent performances.”

Prokop, Dave, “Ski Touring’s Champion Rudi Mattesich”, Nordic World Magazine 4, 2 (October 1975), 37.

1962:     “The Ski touring Council was organized in 1962 for the purpose of reviving the sport of ski touring, to put skiing back where it was before lifts.

…Rudi didn’t attempt to go it alone. The Ski Touring Council cooperated closely with such groups as the Eastern Ski Assoc., the Metropolitan New York Ski Council and the Nordic Ski Touring Patrol. The organization worked with communities, schools and clubs to advise on the organization of ski tours, the laying out of trails and the conducting of workshops.

Members pushed ski touring on golf courses to provide skiing near home, an idea that proved especially worthwhile during the gas shortage of the 1973/74 ski season.

Under the Council’s sponsorship, a group of foreign correspondents made a tour in the East to study ski touring, which they found superior to anything in Europe. The Council was represented at ski shows. It provided speakers and began maintaining a photo service. News releases were issued on a regular basis.

Bill Rice, “The Man: and the Ski Touring Council’, X-Country Skier, 2, 1 (Fall 1978/79), 11.

1962:     “Packing should be done a week before the race with snowshoes, or better yet, dragging it by snowcat. The latter can easily be done if the trail has been well cleared during the summer. To ensure fast skiing conditions the ski track itself should be set immediately after packing by a group of six or more skiers on cross country skis. They set in straight even tracks allowing five to eight inches between skis on the flats, slightly more on downhills, and slightly less on hill climbs.”

Richard Eliot, “Cross Country Trail: A Guide For Race-Sanctioning Ski Clubs”, Skier, X1, 2 (November 1962), 27.

1963:     “”More people are discovering what a really delightful thing touring can be.”

So says lift owner and publisher James Laughlin. An enthusiast who is out skiing over logging trails near his Connecticut home nearly every day in the winter, Laughlin believes most Americans have misconceptions about cross-country skiing.

“They think in terms of heavy boots and skis they wear for downhill skiing. …Few of them are aware of the free body action that comes with moving speedily across the snow with a pair of light-weight, Swedish touring skis, light boots, and a binding that leaves your heel free to move up and down.”

John Wictorin, who handles most of the imported cross-country skis sold in this country, in the past has sold up to 150 pairs a year. Last season, he sold close to 400 pairs. Wictorin is convinced there’s a rising tide of interest in the sport.”

John Fry, “Ski-Touring Pleasure Rediscovered”, Ski, 27, 3 (December 1962), 65-66.

1963:     “The piste teems with downhill skiers, while in the neighboring woods and fields scarcely a ski track marks the shimmering snow…Few skiers strike out across country, and fewer still ever find the joy and satisfaction of touring.”

Emily Williams, “The Truth About Touring,” Skier X11, 2 (November 1963), 23.

1963:     “Then in 1963, I guess, we organized our first tour, in Mad River (VT), and we simply invited friends, newspapermen. There we learned that ski touring really appeals to a different kind of person—one who’s not a downhiller, who’s interested in the outdoors.”

Prokop, “Ski Touring’s Champion”, 37.

February 1965:    “There is no lack of cross-country trails in the East, and no degree of skill unconsidered….The Ski Touring Council, founded in 1962, has been and still is hard at work urging ski resorts to develop touring trails.”

“The Lure of Touring,” Skiing 17, 5 (February 1965), 32.

February 1965:    “Currently the eastern United States is in a relative ferment of touring activity. The Ski Touring Council…has scheduled five “ski walks” over the winter in New York and Vermont. …The Council’s bulletin lists well over 30 trails that can be toured in the East.

The Midwest has also seen its touring enthusiasm expand considerably in the past couple of years.”

Michael Brady, “La Dolce Velocita”, Ski 29, 5 (February 1965), 40.

December 1965:  “The first annual Ski Touring Council Workshop, held at Stratton Mountain, Vermont…drew over sixty devotees of touring, some of them rank beginners.”

Jerry Hart, “The White, White World of Touring,” Skier XV, 2 (November 1966), 26.

December 1965:  “Lately, however, ski touring has been regaining popularity. A major factor in this resurgence has been Rudolph Mattesich’s Ski Touring Council, founded in 1962…

…Increasing interest in ski touring has also caused the Unites States Ski Association to set up a Ski Touring Program with John S. Day of Oregon as the director. This program seeks to guide the development of ski touring in the United States using modern techniques and ideas Mr. Day has been studying in Norway. In the background to all this planning is the hope that this will eventually improve the United States’ standings in future international nordic skiing competitions.

The USEASA has set up a Ski Touring Committee and named George Froelich of Long Island City to chairman it.

…For the person who wants to tour once in awhile and has an extra pair of old wooden downhills, the following procedure can turn them into touring skis. First, unscrew and remove the metal edges. Second, plane off the sides of the skis until the bottom of the ski is again flat except for the middle groove. In other words, make them narrower by the width of the metal edges. Third, sand the bottoms of the skis down to the wood…

Larry Goss, “Ski Touring: A Resurgence”, Skier XIV, 3 (December 1965), 28-30.

Winter of 1966:                   “”No, no, it can’t be done,” Mattesich assured me. “Touring trails have to be prepared. Some parts of the Long Trail have been cleared and marked, around Stratton and Mad River, in particular, but the rest would be very tough going.”

“It’s quite a job fixing up a trail so that skiers can use it. Roland Palmedo (of Mad River Glen) and Frank Snyder (of Stratton) have been doing this on their sections of the Long Trail, but it’s a slow process, and only a few miles of the trail are ready.””

Al Greenberg, “Hey, Al, why don’t you do us a story on ski touring?” Skiing 19, 3 (December 1966), 84.

1966-67:               “I would say that the turning point (for ski touring) came in 1966-67—then it became popular (in the US).”

Prokop, “Ski Touring’s Champion”, 37.

January 1967:     “The Jackson Cross Country Race, rechristened the Freeman Frost Memorial Race, was won last Sunday by John Morton of Middlebury College with a time of 42 minutes, 55 seconds. This was the first running of the race since 1963.

…Ned Gillette of the Dartmouth Outing Club finished second…

Sixty-three racers including the juniors entered the event. This was considerably less than expectations, but considering the face that a similar race was held in Franconia the day before, they were perhaps lucky to have as many competitors as they did.

Everyone agreed that the Jackson Ski and Outing Club organized a well-run race. …With Joe Dodge and Wendall Lees at the finish line, the timing was unimpeachable”.

“Middlebury Racer Wins Jackson CC”, Mt. Washington Valley Signal 5, 3 (January 14, 1967), 3.

1968:     “(Steve) Barnett was driving near Marble, Colorado, on a spring day in 1968 when two guys pulled up next to him and stopped. Pulling backpacks out of their car, they each snapped on a pair of cross-country skis, then headed out over the horizon line of Schofield Pass. Barnett was dumbstruck. He had never even seen cross-country skis before, let alone thought that people could just ski off into the winter wilderness with a chairlift humming nearby. Within a year, Barnett had bought a pair of the flimsy skinny skis, and with no idea of how to ski them, he began a quest to discover what seemed impossible at the time: how to get down a mountain on lightweight cross-country skis without sustaining permanent bodily harm.”

David Goodman, “Ten Years After”, Powder 17, 5 (January 1989) 77-78.

1968:     “In 1968, cross-country skiing (known as ski touring) was seeing signs of revival in the winter sports arena. Jackson saw its first purely cross-country ski lessons given that winter through the Jack Frost Shop, owned by Peggy Frost. Peggy tried to import an instructor from Scandinavia but ran into immigration problems. She also contacted Johan Von Trapp in Stowe, Vermont to inquire about instructors.”

Perkins, “Jackson Ski Touring Foundation”, 4.

1968-69:               “I arrived just before Christmas in 1968. All I had were my clothes and my equipment. The only equipment we had at the lodge were the skis I had shipped over from Norway—perhaps 50 pairs. I think we had 20 or 30 pairs for rental, and the rest for sale. As it turned out, we sold everything that first year and had to order more.

…In the beginning, we used logging and horse trails. We set them up just the way we did in Norway, measuring distance to certain points. …We had no grooming equipment at all, and had to walk over the trails.

We invited the Austrian ski instructors from up on the mountain to come when they were finished teaching. They got their skis for free, and they could just come and ski. They brought people with them. We had a nice bar at the lodge, so we had a good time afterward at the lodge.

That first winter, we were open seven days a week, We started in the garage across the road from the current ski shop. We sold only ski equipment and a few mittens.”

Per Sørlie, quoted in “Trapp Family Album”, Cross Country Skier, (December 1993), 53-55.

1968-69:               “I grew up when in the 40s skiing when you just had skis and you had a cable binding that you could tie your heel down or you could set the binding a little different and your heel would come up fairly freely. And we used to ski around the lodge a lot. And the same skis you would use to ski down the mountain but my college roommate was Norwegian and he introduced me to ski touring as the Norwegians do it. I had raced a little cross country not spectacularly successfully. I was a smoker in those days and after about 10 kilometers my wind got a little short. My college roommate would come up with me for the weekend and we would go up to the mountain and you could buy single rides on the chair lift in those days and we would two or three runs on the mountain and then it would get really crowded with hour long waits and so we would come back here and put our cross country skis on and ski all over the place on cross country skis. In the mid 60s I was looking for something to improve our occupancy in the hotel and I thought I enjoy doing this maybe there is a little niche market there. So I bought a dozen pairs of skis and two dozen pairs of boots and put them in the corner of the garage and put a little sign up and nothing happened so I figured that this program needed somebody to drive to make it happened and called up my erstwhile college roommate and asked him to put an ad in the appear in Oslo for a ski instructor. He got two or three hundred responses and he was kind enough to winnow them down to three for me and the first one I interviewed was such a nice guy and impressed me so much that I didn’t even interview the other two I made him an offer right there and he accepted it. And Per Sorli (sic) came over from Norway that fall and he stayed for four years, he always went back in the summer but he stayed here for four years and did a fabulous job. He was not a racer although he was a very strong skier. He had been an underwater frogman in the Norwegian army and he was a great athlete. But he had great charm and he really knew how to make people feel at ease. He came at the sport from the standpoint of having a goodtime. It was just the perfect guy for the position.”

Johannes von Trapp, Transcript of Oral History Interview with Meredith Scott, Vermont Ski Museum, September 5, 2008.

1970 (Fall)             "Bradford Boynton, the proprietor of the Wildcat Tavern, received permission from various local landowners to hack out and mark several old trails leading from his back door around this loop...In December he went to a touring workshop at the AMC and accepted...the task of running a touring outing from Jackson Village." John Nutter and Colin Davidson assisted.”

Bradford Boynton and Sherman, Lawrence, "The Jackson Ski Touring Foundation", Appalachia, XXXIX, 13 (December 1973), p. 132.

1970:     “1970 was a pivotal year. This particular season, several small but important events took place. The Jack Frost Shop rented their first cross-country skis and gave ski touring lessons both in the village and at Black Mountain. Avery Caldwell came to Jackson and worked as an instructor for the Frost Shop. Brad Boynton, owner of the Wildcat Tavern had a trail system behind his inn. Inn addition, Dick Whipple at the Dana Place Inn had a small trail system maintained by his maintenance man at the inn.”

Perkins, “Jackson Ski Touring Foundation”, 5.

Late 60s and early 70s:      “The Putney hills in the late Sixties and early Seventies saw the height of elite cross-country ski racing the Caldwell-Putney way. Bob Gray lived and trained here. So did Martha Rockwell. Between them over 20 national titles were accrued. Perennial US champ Mike Gallagher visited frequently from Killington. Training camps corralled Olympians Mike Elliot, Ev Dunklee, and Joe McNulty. Caldwell could keep tabs on the US team with a quick glance out his office window.

Those scrawny kids tagging along for the workout? Bill Koch and Tim Caldwell (John’s son), the best juniors anyone in the country had ever seen. Behind them? Jim Galanes and Stan Dunklee from Brattleboro. Here was a coterie of excellence unmatched on this continent. America’s elite was nurtured in Putney and as Caldwell’s book began to sell in impressive numbers (The Boston Globe dubbed it the “Bible of the Sport”), and as magazine articles spread, their rearing and their exploits became The Word.”

Eric Evans, “Tracking John Caldwell”, Sportscape (November 1983), 20-21; New England Ski Museum Collection 1992L.043.002

1971:     “Standing on the groomed slopes of the area (Crested Butte), looking out at the backcountry, we longed to ski those untouched runs far from the crowded lifts. I felt this desire could be fulfilled through cross-country skiing, and in 1971 I began to seriously explore the backcountry potential of nordic equipment.

We soon found that conventional downhill techniques were generally unsuited to the racing skis we first used, or the conditions we encountered. The snowplow didn’t work very well for us in deep powder, and the parallel turn seemed too unstable on free-heeled binding and flexible boots.

We eventually worked out the basics of the telemark, guided by an old picture I had seen of Stein Eriksen’s father demonstrating the turn, and went from there on our own.”

Rick Borkovec, quoted in Brad English, Total Telemarking. Crested Butte: Eagle River Publishing Company, 1984, 32.

1971-72:               Confirmation by Jack Marcial that he, Rick Borkovec, Craig Hall and others were using Nordic skis to access the Crested Butte backcountry, and used the telemark turn in deep snow. “Rick, myself and Craig Hall got certified as cross-country instructors. We just wanted to go hike and make turns; we had no intent to reinvent the telemark. It was a natural evolution that we refined through trial and error.”

Marcial used Asnes cross-country skis with lignostone edges and low Alfa boots. In time he progressed to Fisher Europa 77 skis. He was not an alpine skier at the time, though Borkovec and Hall were.

They progressed to riding lifts at Crested Butte, which helped their technique. He wound up working on the ski patrol, using Nordic skis by about 1978, and continued on patrol until 1987.

“Rick Borkovec was the Sir Lancelot of the Round Table regarding telemark skiing.”

They used ski-joring with dogs to pull them in to Gothics and other locations to access the mountains they would ski. 

Jack Marcial, Telephone interview with Jeff Leich, May 12, 2009.

Early 1970s:         “To gain an accurate perspective on the telemark revolution, take a look at Crested Butte during the early 1970s. Crested Butte…is a small counterculture of sport. When kayaking became popular in Colorado some years ago, Crested Butte went canoeing. When road cycling hit the highways, Crested Butte hit the backcountry on mountain bikes….Crested Butte was modifying the traditionally low-performance tools of cross-country skiing technique and skiing 14,000-foot peaks on touring gear. Little did this group of skiing revolutionaries realize that their counterculture skiing technique ten years ago would lead to a popular rediscovery of telemarking. The change in lifestyles of the original pioneers of “three-pin downhilling” reflects the broader appeal that telemark skiing appears to be enjoying. Rick Borkovec, Doug Buzzell, Greg Dalby, and Jack Marcial, four of the original purveyors of a skiing lifestyle once thought to be as out-dated as it was practical and fun…They and others around the country created the telemark renaissance.”

Art Burrows, “The Telemark Comes Full Circle”, Ski X-C, Winter 1983, 98-99.

1971:     “Cross-country ski touring—until two years ago a Nordic pastime indulged by the purist and cost-conscious—has exploded in the U.S., as measured by the Department of Commerce figures for ski imports from Scandinavia.

The bulk of cross-country skis sold in the U.S. come from Norway, Sweden and Finland. Combined imports from these countries totaled 156,511 pairs in 1971. The same imports in 1969 were around 30,000 pairs, marking a fivefold increase in the space of only two years.

As a result of the cross-country boom, Norway has become the third largest volume exporter of skis to the U.S., behind Japan and Austria. Imports from Norway skyrocketed to 110,673 pairs in 1971, compared with 28,054 pairs the year before.”

“Cross-Country boosts U.S. ski import volume”, Ski Business 12, 6 (Between Show Issue 1972), 1.

1972:     “The 1972 Olympics in Sapporo was Caldwell’s last head-coaching foray with the cross-country ski team. Mike Elliot, with a ninth in the pre-Olympic  30 km the year before, was in top form prior to the Games. Mike Gallagher and Bob Gray, in their early 30s, were at the acme of their careers. The eagles of America’s male cross-country skiers were in full flight…this would be the year to bury any tourist label…the year to break into the top 15 or beyond in an individual event…to take another step forward…to earn some respectability…proof positive of The Word…and for Caldwell, perhaps to erase most of those 24 minutes of Oslo ’52.

But the high hopes were dashed by a flu epidemic. Hollow shells of Gallagher, Elliot, and Gray could only duplicate Grenoble’s peripheral results; the best Americans were four, seven, and 11 minutes out in the 15, 30, and 50 km races. Alaskan Gen Moran’s 24^th in the 50 km was the top placing. It was a debacle dictated by illness.

The’72 Olympic setback launched a period of turbulent transition for John Caldwell. In 1970, Jim Balfanz was hired by the USSA as its first full-time paid Nordic Program Director. John’s US team coaching reins were taken up by Marty Hall in 1972. Partly from natural evolution, and partly from Balfantz’s and Hall’s initiatives, cross-country racing in this country underwent dramatic changes during the decade.

…For the man who had been number one for so many years, who’d been in the center of a movement he had done so much to galvanize, many of these changes were hard to accept, and for a few years, pride lapsed into hubris, questioning into harping, as his role diminished.

Much of Caldwell’s unsettled transition was manifested in a long-running snit with Marty Hall. It was the Al Davis-Pete Rozelle tussle of the ski world. Hall: Discipline. Do it my way. Be good or be gone. Dress code. Unified training program. Systematic weight-training. Alpine wax and stiff skis and downhill emphasis. Go to the top or go to college. Intervals. Push back the pain barrier. Full-time coaches and commitment.

In the other corner, Caldwell: Casual appearance. “Natural strength training”. Kicker wax and soft skis and uphills. Individualized training programs. Skiers can go to college and go to the top.

As night followed day, a Hall article or communiqué or utterance would be followed by a Caldwell rebuttal and vice versa. JC’s Caldwell on Competitive Cross-Country was published in 1974, and careful, savvy readers found it dotted with anti-Hallisms. But, in fact, the similarities far outweighed the differences”.

Evans, “Tracking John Caldwell”, 24.

July 17, 1972:      “The Jackson Ski Touring Foundation was incorporated by local business people and the citizens of the village as a non-profit, voluntary corporation, to maintain cross-country ski trails in and around the town of Jackson.

Perkins, “Jackson Ski Touring Foundation”, 9.

Summer of 1972:                “During the summer of 1972, a trail crew was hired (included were Jack Lufkin, Joe McNulty).With volunteers assisting the paid crew, and support from the Appalachian Mountain Club, 75 miles of trails were cut, modified or connected. Several stories revolve around the cutting of the Wildcat Valley Trail. Joe McNulty, a member of the 1972 Olympic and 1974 World Championship Teams, tells about skiing down the trail in early season snow with a brush saw strapped to his back to finish the trail cutting.

Perkins, “Jackson Ski Touring Foundation”, 10.

October 1972:      “The picturesque village of Jackson, New Hampshire threatens a revolution in contemporary American ski touring. Its cross-country ski touring program’s backbone is a 75-mile system of ski touring trails reaching from the summit of the Wildcat Mountain ski area in the north interconnecting with the Black Mountain and Tyrol ski areas on the south as well as every inn and point of attraction in Jackson and the surrounding White Mountain National Forest.

The largest ski touring trail permit ever issued by the White Mountain National Forest was granted to the Jackson Ski Touring Foundation in October.

Jacquie Jones, “Jackson, NH Creates 75-mile Trail Network for Ski Touring”, Skier XXI, 2 (November 1972) 4.

1972:     “With one season of touring already under its belt, Garcia will be breaking full force onto the Nordic scene with Norwegian bindings, Fisher cross-country skis…

…In skis, there will be three models. The Fisher Europa (about $35 retail) is a metal sandwich with an air-channel poplar core that uses an ABS topskin, abrasion-resistant plastic base and metal sheets above and below the core.

The Europa 77 is a Fiberglass laminate design with a laminated poplar core, plastic base, two sheets of glass and aluminum running edges. The ski will retail for about $65.

A third model, called the Europa Racing, is a fiberglass laminate with an air-channel core and high-density plastic base.

Richard Needham, “Prices down, promotion up at Garcia”, Ski Business 12, 5 (Show Issue 1972), 55.

1972-73:               “USEASA, following many hours of meetings, research and discussions over the past year, has developed a certifying procedure, pre-course and exam for cross-country and ski touring instructors. This program, says USEASA Nordic Programs Director Thomas Kendall, is Eastern’s response to the growing demand for qualified amateur and professional cross-country and ski touring instructors. The examination procedure was developed by the Recreation Committee, composed of some of the top men in the ski touring instruction and cross-country skiing field.”

“USEASA Initiates Certified X-C, Ski Touring Instruction Program”, Skier XXI, 2 (November 1972), 20

1972-73:               Joe Pete Wilson and his partner John Greene started North American Nordic, with multiple touring center locations in the northeast. “When there was snow, we were rolling.”

Wilson, Telephone interview May 5, 2009

Summer 1973:     “Avery Caldwell resigned as Executive Director (of Jackson Ski Touring Foundation) in the summer of 1973. The winter had gone sour with the lack of snow and with not enough skiers paying the $0.50 trail support donation. …Jack Lufkin, an employee from the winter and a member of the 1968 Olympic team, was hired to replace Avery as Executive Director. Jack worked as both the Foundation’s Executive Director and as manager of the Jack Frost Nordic Shop. He resigned in the spring of 1976.

Perkins, “Jackson Ski Touring Foundation”, 12-13.

November 1973:  “At least one out of every four purchasers of skis now buys touring equipment. That statement is based on a recent statistical survey, which indicates that cross-country skiing—or touring—will be more popular than ever this coming season.

…Places for touring are myriad. In my opinion, the Jackson, NH Ski Touring Foundation is the best of its kind in New England—or perhaps in the country.

…The famed Trapp Family of “The Sound of Music” renown run a modest touring center, where informality and fun are the ski-note.”

Tap Goodenough, “Ski touring continues to grow in popularity”, Skier 22, 2 (November 1973) 5.

February 1974:    “Ski tourers, beware! Be on your guard when you buy equipment or when you shell out money for lessons. There’s a ski-world full of people out there who are simply not able to give you the proper advice. That’s the word to the wise from nordic ski expert M. Michael Brady, formerly of the United States but, for the past 12 years, a resident of Oslo, Norway.

“The biggest single problem in marketing ski touring equipment in the United States at this time is that many retailers just don’t know what they’re doing,” Brady says.

Brady says the Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish equipment manufacturers are guilty of pushing skis into the US under as many as six to 12 different names—for the same ski. “In one case I saw the same ski being sold under eight different brand names for eight different prices,” Brady said.”

“Expert warns tourers on equipment”, Skier 22, 5 (February 1974) 5.

February 1974:    “Cross-country skiing in the USA was in evidence in Falun in more ways than through the performance of American skiers. Eyeing the exploding US cross-country ski market, the Austrian giants were there, invading what had been traditionally a Scandinavian field. Fisher and Kneissel vied with one another to get racers on their fiberglass skis, and succeeded as 60 per cent of the racers switched to fiberglass. When Swede Thomas Magnusson crossed the finish line Feb. 17 to win the 30-km race on fiberglass skis, he became the first World Nordic Ski Championships gold medalist to win on anything but wood.”

M. Michael Brady, “Falun championships rock Scandinavia”, Skier 22, 7 (April 1874) 15.

1974:     “When Kneissl arrived at the FIS World Nordic Championships in Falun, Sweden in 1974, they brought with then the new cross-country ski. It was fiberglass, narrow, had a P-Tex bottom and sidecut. The ski was a winner, but many claimed that it was only good in the particular snow conditions at Falun. This has not proven to be the case.”

“Wood Skis Are Dead Says Marty Hall,” Nordic World Magazine Volume Three, Number Three (May 1975), 19.

1974:     “I had just been fired from the Killington Ski Patrol. I got a job teaching Nordic skiing at Mountain Meadows, one of Joe Pete Wilson’s chain of touring centers. Mike Gallagher and John Tidd were there also. I was an alpine skier and missed the downhill. I saw a picture (of the telemark turn) in a book and took my Nordic skis to Killington.

I didn’t know about telemarking in the west. We were both rediscovering it”.

Dickie Hall, Telephone interview with Jeff Leich, May 1, 2009

Early to mid 1970s:             ““In Europe we called it (skating technique) the Siitonen step,” Kratz (Swedish coach Kjell Kratz) remembers, “after the Finn Paul Sittonen who used it in marathons in the early to mid-1970s, but it was Ola ( Hassis) who showed Koch how you could win by skating over long distances.””

Stuart Stevens, “Skating the Worldloppet,” Cross Country Skier IV, 2 (November 1984), 35.

Winter 1975:       “To guard against mishaps which might occur as a result of fatigue, exposure, or injury, and to educate the ski touring public about these dangers, the National Ski Patrol System (NSPS) this past winter certified the first Nordic Ski Patrol program at the Northfield Mountain Ski Touring Center in Northfield, Mass.”

Teyck Weed, “Touring growth spurs changes”, Skier 24, 1 (July 1975), 11.

November 1975:  “Is Madison Avenue taking over ski touring? A number of touring teachers and operators think so, judging from discussion at the annual meeting of ski touring instructors (the Eastern Professional Ski Touring Instructors Association (EPSTI) held Nov. 1-2 at the Mountain Top Inn, Chittenden, VT.

Many of the instructors attending expressed grave concern over what they see as growing commercialism—and expenses—associated with ski touring activities.

Long time cross-country instructor, coach and author of cross-country skiing books and articles, John Caldwell, Putney, VT, contributed to the concern when he led off a discussion of trends in cross-country and touring equipment by predicting that eventually manufacturers of touring skis will stop making the inexpensive wood skis and will only make the faster, more expensive, fiberglass models.

Caldwell said that nearly all cross-country racers now use the fiberglass skis. He predicted every competitor in the 1976 Winter Olympic Games will be on fiberglass skis.

…When discussion of the Graduated Width Method (GWM) of teaching ski touring was brought up, it only enhanced their fears that touring is becoming too much like alpine skiing.”

Kay Scanlon, “The ruination of ski touring?’ Skier 24, 4 (December 1975) 16.

1975:     After extended exposure to the international cross-country racing circuit this season and discussions with the leading nordic ski manufacturers in Europe and the US, Hall has concluded that the revolution by fiberglass and foam has been won in cross-country skiing.”

“Wood Skis Are Dead”, 18.

1975-76:               Steve Barnett knew telemark skiing existed, having read an article by Rick Borkovec published in 1974 or 1975. Barnett disliked the Marker Rotomat TR bindings he was using, and went to REI and bought a pair of used cross-country boots and bindings. He remounted his Fisher Europa 77s with the lighter gear and went on a road trip to Sun Valley, Alta, Telluride and other mountains. “I crashed and burned 1000 times, and figured this out, figured that out, and realized I could turn in breakable crust and mush, and there weren’t many people who could ski that well on downhill skis. The telemark was powerful in difficult conditions, and suddenly I could look at taking long trips into the wilderness.”

“I was excited after that trip. I met one guy at Grand Targhee who was telemarking, Greg Amalong. I don’t know what happened to him. He gave me this pointer: “Why don’t you buy some new boots?”’ The new boots helped.

“I immediately cut out downhill and became evangelical about the telemark. 1977 was a drought year in the west, and it had a beneficial effect on telemarking because there was snow in the high country, and people could access it. That was the year I was writing the book.”

“The need was there; there were lots of people ready to take off (with telemarking). The frequent reaction I got when showing the technique was “I must learn that turn now”.”

Steve Barnett, telephone interview with Jeff Leich, May 19.2009.

1976:     “It was an absolute dream come true, especially for me, since I’d been dreaming about it since I was a small boy...It happened earlier than I thought it would…As I was dreaming about being in the Olympics I only dreamed about winning the medal. I never considered all the other aspects of winning a medal, I never considered what it was like to be The Man, having lots of people calling and lots of pulling in different directions that come with being a well-known person. That caught me completely by surprise.

I think the sport was destined to go through a growth spurt right then, in the mid-70s, and certainly the medal didn’t hurt things, it spurred things on even more…everything converged, and I was kind of in the middle of it, and as I look back on it now it was a really special time to have been there doing it, because the sport transformed during my career, and I got to be there to see it all, right from the front row. I got to see the skating start, I got to see the groomed tracks, the fiberglass skis, and all the stuff that happened in those ten years”.

Bill Koch, videotape of interview with Meredith Scott of Vermont Ski Museum, no date.

1976:     “An esoteric and certainly limited activity until Rudi Mattesich and his Metropolitan Touring Council cohorts began plugging the joys of self-propelled skiing 10 years ago, cross country skiing did not turn “commercial” until about five years ago. Now, it is estimated that there are half a million langlaufers in the US, while the highest estimate placed on the number of downhill skiers is five million----and this after 40 years of lift-building and promoting.

Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, the first and still premier touring center in the East, reports up to 1,000 skiers a day. Johannes von Trapp feels that he must soon institute a daily limit, with season membership holders receiving first priority.

There are now a couple of hundred touring centers in the country, about evenly divided between specialty operations and those run by Alpine areas.”

John Hitchcock, “A Report on X-Country Skiing”, Ski Area Management 15, 4 (Fall 1976), 30.

1976:     “It was a cold day in the winter of 1976. Dick Hall had put in his last lesson for the week as an alpine ski instructor at Killington in Vermont, and he was out experimenting with a new toy—skinny cross-country skis. He set up a challenge for himself: He would take these flimsy things up Killington’s novice slopes, and try to get down any way he could. …”I would get demolished””.

Over in the Adirondacks, Todd Eastman, a familiar face at the local rock-climbing crags, was getting bored with the touring-center scene around Lake Placid. “A friend asked me to do a ski tour, and I said ‘sure,’ he recounts. The tour led them up and down Algonquin, a dramatic 5,100-foot peak in the Adirondacks. “I never skied so hard in my life. We skied down some crazy slides. I had never done anything like that”.

…He recalls that “there would be hardly anyone else out there when we’d ski”. That was probably wise, since the bombers of the Adirondack High Peaks, soon to name themselves the “Ski-to-Die Club,’ were not exactly studies in control. They were rediscovering techniques in the time-tested way, by doing whatever worked.

“I don’t think anyone’s downhill technique was great,” says Eastman, “but it was just so much fun to be out there. We used old touring boots and wooden skis. Everyone just parallel skied. Crashes were continual. You didn’t think you were skiing super well, but you would see others having a hard time and you’d realize you had picked up some tricks””.

David Goodman, “Northeastern Renaissance”, Cross Country Skier, VII, 5, (Spring 1988), 56-57.

November 1976:  “…cross country skiing leads logically into twisting and turning downhill. I found this to be very true when teaching skiing with the 10^th Mountain Division—the Ski Troops—during World War II. We trained at Camp Hale, high in the Rockies, and beginners, even advanced skiers, turned up on the lengthy wooden skis, shuffling around on the level, then trying some simple turns before essaying steep sides of mountains.

…”I never did much cross country skiing until I served in the Ski Troops,” said Toni Matt, famed for his schuss of the Tuckerman Ravine Headwall. “It helped me to gain more rhythm and coordination. In later years, all of my family enjoyed touring, too.””

Tap Goodenough, “Go Both Ways: The Cross-Cultural Skier”, Skier 25, 3 (November 1976) 15.

1977:     “It was 1977 during a race in Umea, Sweden when Ola (Hassis) skated past Koch and soon after that, Billy the K started skating to victory in international events. “We were caught sleeping in bed,” Kratz says with a smile.””

Stevens, “Skating the Worldloppet, 35.

1977:     “remember when ski touring used to be ultra-economical and the essence of simplicity? It didn’t cost much to get outfitted, and you could ski out of your own backyard.

In New England, that memory is beginning to seem alarmingly distant. The good ole days of strapping on a pair of boards and gliding contentedly out across the fields are being threatened by a wave of technological improvements in ski equipment, high-pressure marketing, and intimations of glamour.

…As for the touring centers, they face rising costs, higher expectations about their trail conditions, and overcrowding of facilities. Almost all have now instituted trail fees of between $1-$2 to underwrite maintenance costs; yet at the same time many have been forced to cut back on their trail systems because of problems with private landowners.

…In a very real sense, US ski touring as we know it today began its explosive growth here in New England about six years ago. So perhaps it is predictable that adverse effects of the dramatic boom in cross-country skiing should also be felt here first.

…One of the more startling developments recently is that the cross-country skier has joined the snowmobiler in the eyes of some as an unwelcome intruder. Few tourers think of themselves as pests or trespassers. The sport, in fact, has built its reputation on exactly the opposite. But touring centers are beginning to get complaints that indicate some people consider tourers a pain in the neck.

Part of the problem is sheer numbers. Private landowners who had no objection when a few skiers crossed their lawn each week are rebelling when the number becomes a couple of hundred.

But an equal, if not more important, factor in changing attitudes is the type of skier going out on the trails. Most tourers used to be experienced outdoor enthusiasts, who were well-acquainted with the outdoor ethic and etiquette. The new breed of skiers aren’t.

…One thing is certain. Ski touring here in New England is long past infancy, even adolescence, and the carefree days that once ruled the sport are gone with it. Cross-country skiing has come of age, and with maturity has come responsibility and more than a few hard questions.”

Andrew Nemethy, “Growing Pains of New England Ski Touring”, Nordic World Magazine, 4, 7 (February 1977), 33-34.

1977:     “Forty and fifty years ago excellent ski technique and equipment was available for deep snow touring. Much of it was lost with the development of Alpine skiing, as the touring boot and binding was replaced by the rigid equipment needed for parallel skiing.

…The promoters of cross country skiing have assumed that the recreational cross country skier will hold the same fascination for lightweight gear and perfection of their diagonal stride as does the racer. These promoters are ignorant of cross country skiing’s other dimension: The thrill of deep powder downhill runs and touring in wilderness terrain away from other skiers.

…Deep snow downhill technique has as its core the telemark turn.

Edward R. Baldwin, “Deep Powder: Cross Country Skiing’s Other Dimension”, Nordic Skiing 1, 6 (March 1977), 12-13.

Late 1970s:          Dickie Hall left Mountain Meadows and started Trailhead in Stockbridge VT to teach telemark skiing. No one came.

Hall, Telephone interview, May 1, 2009

1977:     “Now that our numbers have grown large and we are pressing for the use of every available open space, it may be time to examine the use of golf courses more closely. Although dozens of organized cross-country programs made use of golf courses last year and many more golf courses were used informally, skiers and golf people still speak of an “under-exploited potential”.

…We generally regard ourselves as environmental purists who wouldn’t harm a fly…And surely, we see ourselves as being far removed from the excesses of snowmobilers. Those people who derive pleasure from the roar of an unmuffled engine—what could we skiers have in common with them? Well, some golf course operators think we’re all alike—turf killers.

How could a person on skis damage dead grass lying under a blanket of snow? In the first place, the grass isn’t dead, merely dormant. Although photosynthesis does not take place, the roots continue to transpire.

The damage most superintendents worry about results from snow compaction, not gouged turf. Ice forms just above ground under a compacted area. The ice seals off air flow and the grass can suffocate. In addition, the affected turf is much more susceptible to snow mold, a fungus that starts to grow in the space between the ground and the ice layer.

…Whether operated by a commercial lessee, who usually is a ski touring professional, or by the golf course management itself, a touring center can be lucrative. ..As is the case at ski touring centers generally, business at golf course centers is booming. At Woodstock Ski Touring Center, which uses the Woodstock Country Club in Woodstock, VT, skier days totaled 9000 last year, up from 6000 the year before. John Wiggin, director of the Woodstock Center, reports that business has increased every year since the center opened seven years ago, and the center has made a profit every year.

Commercial ski touring centers have moved onto golf courses in Vail, Sun Valley, Park City, Glens Falls, Fayetteville, New London, Copper Hill, Northstar and South Lake Tahoe, to name a few places.

…The Ski Touring Council, with Rudi Mattesich as president, fostered the expansion of golf course skiing in New England and several other Eastern states. As Rudi says, “The idea just popped into my head three or four years ago at a meeting with the Vermont Department of Conservation.”

Barbara Mead, “Golf Course Skiing: Keeping the Grass Green and the Gates Open”, Nordic World Magazine, 4, 5 (September 1977), 28-30.

1978-79:               “Telemark racing has its roots in the high country of central Colorado, where a group of enthusiasts organized a local tour called the Summit Telemark Series in 1978-79. Originally limited to Summit County, it quickly spread to other major resorts in the state and so far has produced the best racers in the country”.

Charlie Meyers, “Telemarking!”,  Cross Country Ski Magazine 8, 1 (October/November 1981), 71.

1979-80:               “I travelled Vermont looking for an area that would let me run a telemark ski school. Stowe wouldn’t let me on their lifts. Killington and Sugarbush were not interested. Ken Quackenbush at Mad River Glen told me “that’s a really cool idea”; he had a photo of himself making telemark turns in the 1930s at Middlebury. I started a touring center at the Mad River Barn and worked at Mad River Glen as the telemark ski school director.

The ADK, AMC and DOC were doing workshops, and I was getting involved with PSIA. PSIA didn’t seem interested in telemark, so I quit and started North America Telemark Organization (NATO). Rossignol and Fisher supported us, and we did festivals at Mt. Tom, Sunday River, Jack Frost in PA and in WV.

Hall, Telephone interview, May 1, 2009

1980:     “…Koch spotted the value of skating while watching a Swede use it entirely to win a 30-kilometer race down a frozen river in 1980. Thus he picked up something the Scandinavians had spot-used and made it a viable style.”

Paul Robbins, “The Inside Edge: Controversy and Competition,” Cross Country Skier, IV, 2 (November 1984), 33.

1981:     “Telemark slalom races in Sweden. Telemark slalom races in Vermont. Telemark slalom races in California, Washington and British Columbia. Even Telemark slalom races at Telemark, Wisconsin. The Telemarking craze is spreading rapidly from its Colorado nursery.

As long as these races were just for fun, they’ve been hard to criticize. But today, the racers are serious. They’re competing for cash prizes, and using bizarre equipment that resembles alpine gear more each day. They are leaving cross country skiing behind. Judges must even be stationed at gates to verify that the competitor truly has made a Telemark turn.

What’s happening here is that we’re stressing cross country’s weakest points compared to alpine. Its prime strengths—the freedom of motion and the versatility of the equipment—are nowhere in evidence.

Furthermore, the pure Telemark slalom is encouraging an evolution of equipment directly away from the all-purpose, lightweight gear that was so attractive in the first place. Boots are becoming too stiff for a comfortable stride, too heavy for touring, and perhaps dangerous as well. Skis are becoming heavier and stiffer—good for hardpack, but not so good elsewhere. They don’t even have wax pockets—they’re not seriously meant for any use but downhill.”

Steve Barnett, “It’s Gone Too Far”, Cross Country Ski Magazine 8, 1 (October/November 1981), 73.

1982:     “It was in ’82 when I really got back where I had left off in 76, and that’s why I won the World Cup. The World Cup in ‘82 was due in large part to the skating. For me, after the ‘80 Olympic disaster, all the Olympic racers got invited to a race in Sweden, where the Olympic racers were racing against the World loppet racers, and the World loppet racers were all, the top guys were all skating at that time, and so that was the point of the race, to put skating against classic technique and see what happens, and the skaters won. And that’s when I realized that skating was faster and I just decided I was just going to go for skating, and so I took the next year off from the World Cup and just went with the World Loppet and learned to skate with those guys.

So when I came back on the World Cup in ’82, I was the only one skating at first, it was just a gift, and I won a few World Cups doing that, and all of a sudden, bang, I was leading the World Cup. Then I got really sick and was behind again, and actually ended up winning in the very last race, so it was a pretty intense season. I think without skating, I probably wouldn’t have won the World Cup.

A lot of people were excited with a new thing, people were jumping on the bandwagon, but on the other hand, the real story was the people who really freaked out about it, they hated it, the Scandinavians in particular. And it’s very understandable, it’s a Scandinavian sport, and to see it dramatically change like that overnight is pretty unsettling, to say the least. So, that year was World Championships in Oslo, Norway, the Holmenkollen was the World Championships, and I was booed for skating. And I understand it, I can sympathize with it, but it was tough to be booed.

The general consensus was in the early World Cups I was getting away with skating, but I would meet my maker in Holmenkollen, because those were tougher courses, and so when I still skated and won a medal in the World Championship that was when everyone realized skating was for real and you had to start skating, so by the end of the year everyone was skating.”

Bill Koch, videotape of interview with Meredith Scott of Vermont Ski Museum, no date.

1982:     …Bill Koch used the marathon-skate technique to such advantage en route to winning the 1982 World Cup title…

…Scandinavians led the opposition to skating after Koch won four individual races in 1982 and became the first American to capture the overall World Cup championship, which had previously been a Scandinavian or Soviet prize. The anti-skate faction claimed the technique, which has been used for decades by nordic hunters and for a couple of years by elite marathon racers, was “Untraditional”.”

Robbins, “The Inside Edge”, 32.