SFL Family Tree, Norwegian Roots

Newcomers to Ski for Light may wonder at all the talk about Norway. Here is a bit of background on why that is so.

Archaeologists have found 2,500 year old, well-preserved pieces of skis in marshes around the country. Even older evidence has been discovered in the form of a rock-carving at a place called R?d?y in Northern Norway. It shows clearly a human figure on skis.

In more modern times, explorer-humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen said in his 1890 book, "Skiing Across Greenland," that, "Of all the sports of Norway, skiing is the most national, and a magnificent sport it is, thoroughly deserving of the title "Sport of Sports,"

Skiing as a sport was born in the mid-1800s, primarily as a result of the efforts of people from the Telemark area. Its valley of Morgedal has come to be known as the cradle of skiing.

So, when Norwegians joined the mass migration to North America 200 years ago, it was only natural that they should bring their knowledge of skiing with them. Some of the Norwegian settlers became known as pioneers of skiing in their respective areas in the New World.

It is appropriate to begin any mention of these men with Sondre Norheim, who has been called the Father of Modern Skiing. He was born in Morgedal in 1825, the same year the sloop Restauration left Norway with that first shipload of Norwegians headed for a new life in America. As he became an accomplished skier, he decided to improve the state of the art by developing a binding that made it possible to make turns at high speeds and even to jump on skis. Although many an athletic feat had been delivered on skis over the centuries, it was only now that skiing became a competitive and popular sport. With his new binding with a heel strap, Norheim has been given credit as the originator of slalom skiing.

In 1884, he immigrated to North Dakota, where he continued skiing and even making skis. He died and was buried in Denbigh, ND, where a plaque was erected in his honor in 1966.

Another famous Norwegian immigrant skier from Telemark was born two years after Norheim. His name in the first part of his life was Jon Torsteinsson Rui, which he changed to the more easily pronounceable John Thompson , and he was to become a legend as a one-man postal service, carrying heavy mail bags over the Sierra Nevada mountains in winter. People in that part of the continent didn't know about skis, but they were familiar with snowshoes, so they called the Norwegian-American volunteer mail carrier "Snowshoe Thompson." He skied a 90-mile route from Placerville, California to Genoa and Virginia City, Nevada. Today there is a brilliant bronze sculpture of him, his mailbag and his skis at Boreal Ridge in the Sierra Nevada.

Many more names of ski heroes from the Old Country could be mentioned here, but let us limit it to one more, namely ski jumper Carl Howelsen born as Karl Hovelsen, who lived from 1877 to 1955, and who won several medals in the Holmenkollen competitions in Oslo before emigrating to the U.S. in 1905. He worked at the Barnum & Baily Circus, "The Greatest Show on Earth." He was one of the first who started ski clubs in the United States and was one of the founders of the Norge Ski Club in the Chicago area. He moved to Steamboat Springs, in Colorado, in 1910. He built the original ski jumping hill in Steamboat Springs, now known as Howelsen Hill and earned the nickname of "Father of Ski Jumping in Colorado." He later returned to Norway where his son Leif was born. Leif was a member of the Norwegian contingent who joined Erling Stordahl and attended the Race for Light in Frisco, Colorado in 1975.

Olav Pedersen, our own "Father of Ski for Light," an emigrant from Norway, was inducted into the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame as well as the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in Michigan. We're in good company!