Ski Like Mad

We recently had the opportunity to ski with friends, an experience I am feeling very grateful for. Skiing was not on the itinerary for me when growing up and after a classmate broke her leg in grade 2 learning the sport, it became completely out of the question.

I missed every ski trip to Holiday Valley and Kissing Bridge in high school, very envious of the happy people spilling out of a returning coach bus at night just as jazz band was wrapping up. They carried boots and lift tickets home. I carried an alto sax.

Now I am learning how to ski in my forties, and this definitely has its challenges. I took some lessons in my 20s and had enough confidence then to manage some blue runs at Collingwood and St. Sauveur. I figured out how to cross country ski on a few early marriage dates with used boots from the early 80s.

Now the only part of learning that seems interesting at all is HOW DO I STOP. How do I maintain control in this ridiculous opportunity to fling yourself down a hill for “thrills” – knowing that without managing yourself effectively, a very very serious injury or worse could happen.

So here is this month's rabbit hole, falling off the slopes and in to ski lit. From history and its past and relatively recent evolution to the sport we now recognize. To literature from around the world, but mostly Norway. And in to film, with a long list of ways to watch other people skiing, from the far safer location of a couch.

Skiing has a very long history. 8000 years ago, Scandinavians used strips of wood strapped to their feet for winter transportation and hunting. Before the Pyramids at Giza, before handwriting, before paper, there was skiing. It was a practical survival skill.

Downhill skiing for fun is a relatively new and uniquely modern pursuit. Even after the Oslo Olympics in 1952, Norwegians continued to insist that alpine skiing was insane. ‘Pure’ skiing in their minds was either cross country or ski jumping, which by the way Norway, is equally insane.

Austria reigns the European ski world and includes St. Anton, where Hannes Schneider opened the world’s first modern ski school in 1921. Modern alpine skiing was pretty much invented in Tyrol. The first written record of downhill ski racing comes from mining camps in California during the Gold Rush.

Until the 1950s, skiing for sport was a fairly primitive experience. Skiers either walked up hills or were pulled up by a knotted rope. Before chalets there were dark smoky huts and your apres ski likely looked like a tin of meat. It wasn’t all bad. In 1927 a young Canadian could catch the ‘ski train’ from Montreal to the Laurentians, enjoy a massive party on the way, and ski at some of of the first private clubs established in North America. Through the 1930s, ski gear became easier to buy through manufacturers like LL Bean and Abercrombie & Fitch.

Post-war innovations transformed the ski experience with waterproof and stretch fabrics, chairlifts, new lightweight ski construction, snow making machinery and grooming equipment. The Interstate System and jet travel made it possible for Americans to access new resort areas in Vermont, Aspen, and Europe. Economic growth established a new leisure class that had time and money to spend on ridiculous things. Enter the skis.

By 1950, skiing was much more than a sport – it was a mode of existence. Ski Life magazine launched in 1959, the same year that Bogner released stretch pants in vivid colours that transformed the look of skiing bodies, specifically rear ends. (Lululemon, you were not the first!) Slim Aarons photographed beautiful people in Vermont, Aspen and Austria through the mid-century to Disco to yuppie eras.

For successive generations through the 20th century, skiing represented mobility, wealth, sexuality and fashion. The sport required an embrace of technological innovations while defying death. Ski resorts and clothing advertisements appeared in Playboy, Cosmopolitan and Gourmet magazine. By the 1990s, skiing was global and “a keystone of middle-class identity.”

Like many things in modern life, skiing also made its way to the big screen. Beyond the Beatles frolicking in Help!, David Niven’s v-neck sweater in The Pink Panther, Sigourney Weaver plunging to a broken leg in Working Girl, and Jeff Bridges' tongue in Dumb and Dumber, more serious takes on the sport often linked skiing with mystery, espionage and intrigue.

Charade, Caprice, The Downhill Racer and most recent version of The Saboteurs all convey that bad situations are truly getting worse when characters need to plummet down some slope. Skiing takes the tension in these movies to 11.

And yes, to my hilltop defying question, people have written about skiing. For a fantastic compilation of 'ski lit' please look to Ingrid Christophersen and her 2021 project

To Heaven’s Heights: An Anthology of Skiing Literature. This is a beautiful volume and a fun read with dozens of excerpts from authors ancient through modern.

This post is part of a longer newsletter originally shared in March 2025.

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