Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-05-29
SNOWSHOEINC.
The Rising Generations Know it
No More.
TYPICAL MODERN NORSEWOMAN.
The Appreciation of the Joys of Snow
shoeing by Women of Norway
Ski-Running an Art.
TYPICAL MODERN NORSEWOMAN.

The typical modern Norsewoman is
peculiarly interesting member of her
sex. He must be but an unobservant
traveller who, on first landing in Chris
tiania, does not remark the brilliant
eyes, rosy cheeks, and general air of
active well-being of the majority of the
young women whom he meets. On
deeper acquaintance he will find their
minds as quick and vigorous as their
colors; their modes of thought and
ideas of the possibilities and ends of
life characterized by remarkable fresh
ness, direct simplicity, strength, ambi-
ton, and independence.
But if our traveller be of an inquir.
ing turn he will discover this condition
Of things to be strictly new growth
Twenty years ago the hole duty of the
Norsewoman-and very nearly her
whole existence, too-consisted in
minding the household, mending the
clothes, watering the flowers, and
keeping as much indoors as possible,
except when she went to church or to
a solemn and mighty dinner, with her
husband. To walk in the streets more
than was absolutely necessary was re-
garded as sign of reprehensible levity
of character. A habit of strolling
in the fields would have occurred as a
possible feminine resource only to the
most antic intellect. And, like all
plants that grow in the dark, these
were apt to be faint and pale. A
woman was a housewife-actual or
potential-1ien de plus-and a house
wife, moreover, whom the inheritance
of generations had taught to keep very
strictly to her own preserves. without
any infringement ON the prerogatives
of her lord and master, or any unseem-
ly indulgence in whatever individuality
she might happen to be born with.
All that now belongs to the past.
The rising generations know it no
more. And why? Dare l say it is
because the rising generations 60 snow
shoeing? That sounds absurd, yet no
one who has not lived in Norway can
have any notion of the immense social
force that mere sport may become
Whether Norwegian women learned to
stand alone in life because they had
first found their feet or ski, or whether
their great and glorious ski-running is
itself a product of the new era, it is
difficult to say, but certainly there is
new era, and there are ski, and both
are SO closely interviewer as to seem in
tepral parts of each other,
1t is not bard to understand how a
sport that puts every muscle of the body
into, thorough action, and sends every
drop of blood racing through the veins,
when practised increasingly. during
half the year by women of all ranks,
must have its effects on the minds of
those women.
IL the daughters are embodiments
of hardy health, keyed to high spirits
and steady nerve by daily exercise of
the finest and most strenuous kind the
bracing mountain air, one cannot ex-
pect these daughters to repeat, men,
tally or physically, the characteristics
of their housebred mothers. Fresh
health and fresh spirits have brought
new ambition-until now few tasks
are too difficult for Norsewoman to
undertake updaunted. The university
which is coeducational has no students
ON its rolls whose work is better (none
could be more earnest) than that of the
girl students who are sure to be ski
runners. They enter the professions,
they go into trade, they attack social
problems, and seeing new needs, in
vent new occupations; they talk of
high things, they start new charities,
they work at old ones; if they are
poor and proud, they emigrate to
having received university
and begin at the bottom of
the ladder as house servants if they
must, until the way opens. But, in
success or defeat, whatever they do
they do with heart and soul-with
lasting fire. tireless energy, single
ness of purpose, that is very touching
to see. like any unconciously beautiful
and spiritual thing in this weary old
world of ours.
Ski-running has been practiced from
remote times by the peasants and coun-
try people generally of both sexes, and
that of necessity. as the only feasible
means of locomotion off the beaten
roads. during good part of the year.
But its existence as sport of dwellers
in towns is of recent growth. 1t can
hardly be more than ten years since
the women adopted it, yet in that ten
years its conquest has been complete.
Children are now put on ski as soon
as they have serviceable acquaintance
with their own legs. Learning the art
at that age when all things are easy,
and upsets not dreaded, by the time
they are schoolgirls they are as famil-
lar with their snow shoes as the Amer
lean small boy is with his skates, and
have formed a love for them which
never grows less. Instantly lessons are
over of winter afternoon small Rag
mild OF Dagny hastens to array her