For thousands of years skiing has been the most important way of
moving during the winter time in Scandinavia, Russia and Siberia.
Finnish word for the skis, which is "sukset", is about 6000 years
old. Interesting point is, that Finnish is the only language that
has
a special word for skiing, "hiihtää". In other languages
the same
thing is expressed as running or driving with the skis, for
example
in Swedish it is said "åka skidor" ( = 'to drive skis'). In
English,
there is only one word, ski, which is used as a verb and a noun.
Special word for skiing is a very good example of the fact that
the
skis and skiing have been so important in the Finnish way of life
and
culture for number of generations. Even a greek historian
Prokopios
wrote in 550's about a people that lived in far north. He used
word
"scrithifinnoi" which is later explained to mean "Skiing Finns".
In
fact, that is the first known written information about skiing.
This is a picture of a cave painting from northern Norway. It is
about 4000 years old and it is the oldest picture about skiing.
This
cave painting inspired the organisers of Lillehammer Winter Games
to
use the same kind of logos for every kind of sport events.
1 2 3 4 5 6
The ancient skis (#1 in the picture)
The oldest skis, found in Sweden, are believed to be about 4500
years
old. They were buried under couple of meters of turf, which
preserved
the skis in quite a good condition and scientists could make a lot
of
conclusions about the origin of the skis.
The ancient skis were broad and short, about 1,5 to 1,7 meters
long
and 15 to 20 cm broad. They were carved from a piece of wood with
an
axe. There was a deer skin at the underside of the ski, so they
were
not sliding very well. That is why the ancient skis were used
mainly
like a snowshoe, not like today's skis.
Different sized skis
About 200 BC skis and skiing changed radically. Then it became
common
to use two different kinds of skis. The left foot ski was very
long
and it was ment to slide forward. With the right foot ski, skier
kicked more speed. So the skier put his/her weight on his/her left
foot and just kept the left ski sliding while giving more speed
with
the right ski.
The left ski was called just longer ski in English (
#2 in the
picture),
but in Finnish it has it's own word, "lyly" (in Finnish,
one can use this word as a synonym for skiing, "lykkiä
lylyä", but
it is quite an ancient word and not used anymore). Longer ski
was made from pine or spruce which has for some reason grown
curved
(for example, when the tree is young, heavy snow can bend the
tree).
When the ski was carved from the lower side of the curved tree,
the ski was naturally sliding very well without waxing thanks
to resin of the tree. The longer skis were, as the name implies,
quite long. Length varied from 3 to 3,5 meters and they weighed
about 3,5 kg. Making of the longer ski required great skill
and that is why they were very expensive. Even in the 19th
century one must pay for a longer ski as much as for a cow.
The right ski (#3 in the
picture) was called shorter ski or kick ski in English
and "kalhu" in Finnish. The quality of this ski was not so
important, so
it was made from almost any kind of piece of wood. Shorter skis
were
1 to 2 meters long. The underside of the ski was covered with a
skin
of a deer, elk or reindeer so the ski was not sliding, and it was
very easy to kick speed with it. Shorter skis were less expensive,
so
it was not a catastrophe if one happened to break one's right ski.
When skiing with different size of skis, only one stick was used.
That was mainly used for keeping the balance, speed was gained
with
the kick ski. There was also another interesting feature on the
stick: at the other end of the stick, there was a ring (as today's
sticks), but at the other end there was, for example, a spear. As
skis were also used for hunting it was convenient to carry one's
weapon in a practical way, so it was a common practice to combine
the
stick itself and the weapon into one handy packet.
These different size skis were used for 2000 years for hunting and
getting from one place to another. Even in the late 19th century,
these kind of skis were used widely in the wilderness of the
Northern
Karelia in deer hunting.
Equal sized skis
After 1850 it was invented that it could be more efficient and
faster
to use two sticks instead of one. With two sticks it also became
unnecessary to use two different sized skis. For the first time,
skis
and skiing techique started to look like what they are today.
In the later half of the 19th century, skiing was not anymore just
a
way of moving, skiers wanted to compete against each other. During
that time, all the skiing competitions in Finland were held on ice
of
the lakes or rivers. For that reason, skis were made very long,
because it was unnecessary to climb hills up and down. This kind
of
skis were always over three meters long and they were named after
the
region where they were made. These Haapavesi skis (
#4 in the
picture)
were very well known in Finland for their high quality in the late
19th century.
Cross country skis
When the international skiing competitions had became common in
the
early 20th century, skiers wanted more challenging tracks than
just
skiing on flat ice. When the competititions were transferred to
the
woods in 1920's, we can start to talk about real cross country
skiing. This brought also a new type of ski from Norway (
#5 in
the picture)
to replace the Finnish long "ice" skis, which were very
clumsy in cross country skiing. Norwegian skis were better suited
for skiing up and down hills in forests. These new skis were made,
like all the other skis before that, from wood and especially
from birch. Finns quickly mastered the skill of making new
type of skis. In fact, Finns adopted the new technique so well
that an engineer Kelpo Vohlonen invented a completely new kind
of ski binding, which was attached to skiing shoe only at
the front ( #5 in the picture). After that,
Jussi Mononen designed
special skiing shoes, called "monot", which were perfectly suited
for
mr. Vohlonen's bindings. In fact, here in Finland, all the skiing
shoes made after the invention of the new shoe are even nowadays
called "monot" despite their designer or manufacturer.
The next generation of skis was made with a new kind of technique:
several kind of wood was glued together instead of making ski from
just a one piece of wood. With this new structure, skis became
much
lighter and more flexible, so the skis did not break so easily.
First
skis of this type were used in 1950's until the revolution of ski
design in 1970's. Then the first plastic or fibre glass skis
(
#6 in the
picture) were introduced and skis became very light and
durable. Wooden ski could not compete against this new type
of ski, and the time of the wooden ski had come to an end.
The tradition of several millennia was broken.