The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1900-10-19
SWIFT NODE or RUNNING q.


II Hat, often with q groove along the
middle, and is made as smooth as pos
sible. They are fastened to the feet BY
. loop for the toe, fixed near the center
OF the xxi, and g band, which passes
from this round behind the heel Of the
sshoe, and which car; be tied very tight,
writes DR.. Nansen, in Land and Water.
remember an incident which hap
.pened to an acquaintance of mime i'm
America many. years ago: He was pm
engineer, and was surveying for rail-
way far west on: the prairies.4Th win
sterhad set in. and deep snow had COW
cred the fields. Being ski.lful ski rum
ner, he made himself a pair ofsski. The
same day he had been out trying these
for the first time, 2 group Of Indians
came upon track consisting of two
parallel. grooves. or%furrows~4sin the
snow, and having never seen similar
track before, they followed it up to
make out what kind of an animal it
might originate from. They followed
the track straight to the door of the
Norwegian's cottage, where they saw
two strips of wood leaning against the
wall. They measured the track and
they measured these wooden things,
and found that they, were of exactly
the same breadth.
And now followed a very close in
vestigation Of these marvellous or ca
lures, which were carefully measured
on all sides. When the Norwegian, as
by chance, came out Of his cottage
door, the natives darted away from
the ski and looked at something else,
pretending not even to have noticed.
The Norwegian showed them, however,
the ski and how they were used. They
wished now to try them, but using
them as they were accustomed to do
their snowshoes, they made Slow prog
ress, and found them poor and slippery.
The Norwegian then put them on an d
proposed to race with the Indians, and
they were quite willing. But. the sur
prise of these swift Indians, on their
light snowshoes, was great when they
discovered that they were only able to
keep pace with him for q few hundred
yards and then rapidly dropped behind,
even though they were racing over
their well-known prairies. Afterward
the Norwegian helped them, to make
ski, and some of the Indians learned
to use them tolerably well, although
men who are not trained to use ski
from early boyhood very seldom be-
come skillful ski runners. .s~e~s
The motion employed II skiing has
no resemblance to that employed in
skating. While they are moved the
ski are always kept strictly parallel
and as close together as possible, and
should not be lifted from the ground
like Canadian snowshoes. On fiat
ground they should constantly be Ike pit
gliding over the surface of the snow,
while being driven forward, by alter
nate strokes from the hips and thighs
and the body is thrown forward in each
stride. The length Of the stride may
be increased by propulsion of the staff
which the ski runner carries in his
hand. Uphill, If the gradient be steep,
the ski runner will have to tack from
side to side,' following zig-zag course
or 60 sideways, bringing the ski al
most to right angle with the slope.
But downhill the ski runner often goes
with tremendous speed, and then it
may well be possible that he could
''outstrip the birds in flight" The
ski now slide readily, and the sleeper
the slope the greater the speed, the
one thing necessary being to maintain
the balance and to steer clear of hi