PRICE ONE SHILLING.
THE
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF SKI.
By D. M. M. Crichton Somerville.
There are many people to whom the word “ski” must be an enigma, and everything connected with the pastime “ski-ing” as a sealed book. The object of the present treatise is, therefore, to solve the puzzle, open the pages of the closed volume, and thus throw light on a sport which, when once learnt, will be found more attractive, healthy, and invigorating than any other winter exercise, provided, of course, that it be not carried on (as often is the case) to excess, but is indulged in only by those who are sound of wind and limb.
For the sake of the uninitiated, it may be explained that ski (pronounced she) is a word of foreign origin, which, up to comparatively recent years, has been translated “snowshoe,” a term which conveys a wrong idea of the appliances in question, even supposing it might be more fitly given to the forerunners of the ski, viz., pattens formed of withes or wood, which are used in many parts at the present day, and of which the Indian or Canadian snowshoe is a modified type, and best known to British sportsmen.[1] The ski, however, are of different construction, being formed of narrow boards, 7ft. and more in length, upturned at the toe to allow of their being shoved or slid over the snow, when attached to the feet of the wearer.
With the exception of snow skates (iron shod runners some 2ft. in length, for use on roadways and hard surfaces) they are the only kind of foot gear used for the purpose of gliding on snow, and possess many advantages over other snowshoes, not the least being their capability of being used for pleasure, as well as the necessary outdoor pursuits of daily life.
Until comparatively late years the employment of ski as contrivances for travelling on the snow was unknown to the majority of those inhabiting the more populated parts of the civilised globe, where communication can nearly always be kept open by rail, steamboat, or other means; notwithstanding that they are, and have been used from time immemorial during many months of the year by a large portion of the population of Northern and Central Asia, Russia, Scandinavia, and even the southern parts of Eastern Europe, where the winters are severe. Casual allusions to them in the writings of some few sporting authors did not suffice to bring the ski into other than mere passing notice; and they would probably have remained in obscurity but for the somewhat recent discovery that they could be employed for other purposes than those of mere locomotion, or keeping open communication in lands and districts where snows are deep, and highways lie buried or are unknown.
It may be of interest to mention here that, in remote parts of England, ski appear to have been employed so late even as the middle of the past century, their use being discontinued as communication with the outer world became easier. Thus, apart from information derived from other sources respecting finds of ski, or their remains in various parts, one gentleman, writing from Cumberland in February, 1904, states that, in the dales of Yorkshire and Durham, the sport is by no means new, and that forty years ago he went to his school on “skees,” which were made of beech wood, some 5ft. in length, with “nibs” about 3in., and that it was no uncommon practice in those days for the Weardale miners to go to and from their work on such snowshoes, it being a fine thing to see thirty or forty men gliding down the steep slopes from the mines at a speed equal to that of a railway train. The writer also adds that, amongst the youths, skee-jumping was a favourite pastime, and that he believes the practice was a very old one from the fact that he knew boys of his own age who had come into possession of “skees” once owned by their grand-fathers.[2]
To judge from the description given by the author of “Lorna Doone,” a form of ski was, probably, known in Devonshire some 300 years ago, where also sledges were employed throughout the entire year instead of wheeled vehicles for carting in farm products. In the story he relates how when, during the great frost of 1625, John Ridd was told that, in the Arctic regions, any man might get along with a “boat” on either foot to prevent his sinking in the snow—such “boats” being made very strong and light, of ribs with skin across them, 5ft. long by 1ft. wide, and turned up at each end, even as a canoe is—he built himself a pair of strong and light snowshoes, framed of ash, and ribbed of withy with half-tanned calf skin stretched across, and an inner sole to support his feet. “At first,” he says, “I could not walk at all, but floundered about most piteously, catching one shoe in the other, and both of them in the snowdrifts (just as a beginner would now), to the great amusement of the maidens who were come to look at me.”
From the above description such ski would have resembled those of the Chukchis in North-East Asia.