Posted by andyb on January 18, 2009 at 10:13:19 user beardbiter.
In Reply to: Re: Dick Warning-now back to WH posted by alan truelove on January 16, 2009 at 16:03:57:
Back in AR's time I don't think the distinction between cross-country and other forms of skiing had really emerged. The rudimentary bindings used then could be attached to most boots and used for along, up and down (after a fashion). I imagine they were rather frustratingly inclined to detach themselves as well. I don't know to what extent skiing had penetrated Russia, Latvia etc by the 1920s, but I think that AR spent a winter in Sweden where he would surely have encountered skiers. If not, then the First Crossing of Greenland, studied on the Fram is basically the story of a ski trip.
I suspect that AR didn't introduce skis because he was writing of the great frost of his youth and the skating done then. I bet it was hard work skating on the unswept lake ice, or do we think that no further snow fell since "softly..." and the Ds' blizzard?