Arnold Lunn (1927) A History of Ski-ing, Oxford University Press, London. p3-6
Ski-ing, perhaps the oldest of sports, has so far escaped the attentions of the historian, and the reader who is interested in the subject has to content himself with an occasional article on a particular period or on a brief summary, of which the most masterly is the introduction to Richardson’s “Ski-Runner.” There has been no attempt to chronicle the history of ski-ing from the earliest days up to modern times. Perhaps supply has waited on demand, and perhaps no sufficient demand exists for a history of ski-ing. Ski-runners may only ask of a book that it shall fulfil the function either of teacher or of guide; that it shall assist the reader to improve his ski-ing or to discover new ski tours.
The same could be said of many mountaineers. The average climber is, of course, familiar with the Alpine classics. He reads and enjoys his Whymper, Leslie Stephen and Mummery, and indeed mountaineers have usually been generous patrons of any well-written book on their sport. But he does not, as a rule, read mere histories of mountaineering. Gribble’s delightful “Early Mountaineers” had a small sale, and I wonder how many climbers are familiar with Coolidge’s classic work on Simler and the origin of Alpine climbing? The mountaineer turns to Whymper, Stephen or Mummery to renew his memories of the hills, “Mountain Craft to teach him his job, and “The Climbers’ Guides” to show him the way. Such is the average Alpine library. There remains a small minority which is passionately interested in the details of Alpine history, and this minority devotes much time to research and publishes many books and articles for the benefit of their fellow-students. They will argue with the vehemence of experts on questions which leave most people very cold. Problems such as the alleged first ascent of the Finsteraarhorn in 1812 are still capable of provoking spirited controversy. It is, of course, perhaps easy to take such matters too seriously. The question whether X did or did not reach the summit of a particular peak is not a matter of international significance. And yet the best things in a man’s life are often his hobbies, and if he will not take his hobbies seriously life will lose half its charm. And mountaineering is something more than a hobby.
The Alps indeed owe much of their fascination to their human associations, to that long epic of triumph and disaster, joy and sorrow which is the woof of Alpine history. Can any sport boast a more dramatic story than the tale of that first ascent of the Matterhorn? Again, to cite a more esoteric example-the cliffs of the Finsteraarhorn would impress a man who knew nothing of its history, but the challenge of the great south-eastern ridge makes a deeper appeal to those who know the story of that first gallant assault on its secrets which took place in the dawn of mountaineering.
It is possible to attach too much significance to the history of a sport, but it is also possible to under-estimate the social reactions of sport on national life. The historian who enjoys all the emotions of sport in the attempt to prove that other historians are mistaken is apt to forget that sport in some form or other is the main object of most lives, that most men work in order to play, and that games which bulk so largely in the life of the individual cannot be neglected in studying the life of the nation. The relations between socman and villein are no doubt highly intriguing, but some of us would like to know how the socman amused himself when he had done soccing (or whatever the socman did). I have seen a history of Switzerland which was carried down to the end of the war and which blandly omitted all mention of mountaineering. Of course, I read a great deal about the hardy mountaineer, but I discovered that by mountaineer” the learned author merely meant a peasant who lived in or among the mountains. The Alps were discussed as a military frontier; their far deeper significance as a social asset was ignored. And yet there are no sports which have proved of greater racial value than mountaineering and ski-ing to those races lucky enough to possess mountains and snow for the asking. Contrast the weekend of a clerk in London and in Zürich. The former, at best, escapes into the country on a bicycle. At the worst he spends Sunday loafing around the cinemas or public-houses. In Switzerland this type is almost unknown. Lake, river and mountain are the com- peting attractions which empty the towns during the week-end, and if anything could reconcile me to serious rowing it would be the endurance of this dreary treadmill on an Alpine lake mirroring the snowy hills. But the mountains are a dangerous rival to the water, and every Saturday you may see the week-end trains leaving Berne or Munich or Vienna overflowing with bronzed weather-beaten men in excellent training for their weekly battle with the peaks. Most of them are guideless climbers, and they learn in the mountain school lessons of courage and endurance and initiative and good humour under adversity, lessons of imperishable value not only to the individual but to the race. Mountaineering with these men is a democratic sport. “There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,” and though guideless climbing exacts a heavy annual toll, and though “there with the rest are the lads who will never be old,” the price is not too high when we consider the easy access of all classes to beauty and to adventure.
Ski-ing is responsible for something like a social revolution, which unlike most revolutions has damaged nobody and benefited all those who have been infected by the passion. Life in the mountain valleys was a dreary business through the long winter months before the “hardy mountaineer” learned to ski. For as a rule the hardy mountaineer has a very healthy dislike of mountains, and when he is not being paid to lead foreigners to their summits he prefers to stay at home. The local pub. and the great Swiss card game, “Jass,” whose mysteries I hope one day to unravel, provided almost the only amusement when the snow lay heavy on the ground. But to-day the wirtschaft has lost much of its former patronage. Those who have penetrated in winter to the remoter valleys whose inhabitants have not yet taken to ski-ing must have noticed the contrast between the listless natives and the keen, happy energy of those who live in happier vales where the ski have found a home. The same change was observed in Christiania, where ski-ing as a sport only dates from the ‘seventies. The improvement in general health and physique was striking, and the effect was perhaps most marked on Norwegian womanhood. Norwegian women had conformed to the best Victorian models until the ski came and crochet work lost its charm. The ladies were not slow in deserting the fireside and in insisting on accompanying their menfolk into the hills. The new freemasonry of the ski achieved in a few years the result which some people fondly imagined would be secured by the odd contrivance of female suffrage. The outlook and the status of the sex was radically changed.
And so I make no apology for this attempt to trace the history of our noble sport. These things may interest only a minority, but it is for that minority I write. The rest need not read me. Nobody is compelled to pass an examination in the British Ski Year Book. No such examination is, as yet, included in the Tests. Caveat lector. He has had full warning, and perhaps he has already given up. The labour of collecting from many sources the materials for this book is repaid by the thought that I know at least two, and perhaps three, readers who will read what I have to say. There is Marcel Kurz. He must read my book because I have read his. I read every line of his history of winter climbing in the Valais, and one good turn deserves another.
And at least I have the consolation of knowing that once the result of my researches find their way into print, they are on record for all time. Nobody may read them to-day, but in a century or so, when the origins of British ski-ing are wrapped in mystery, the historian of the future may be glad to use the material which has here been so laboriously gathered together. Perhaps that unborn historian will hesitate to reveal his sources and will attempt to claim the credit for my labours by the simple expedient of copying my references without quoting my book. But I trust that he may be sufficiently magnanimous to immortalise me in a footnote. And in my dreams I read that footnote and feel very proud.
“Throughout this chapter I have made use of a scarce book published in the early decades of the last century. This work, A History of Ski-ing,’ by Arnold Lunn, does not appear to have been widely read at the time. It is not without a certain merit, though written in a pedantic style, and abounding in misprints. Its quaint archaic English (early twentieth century) compensates for a certain tediousness of diction. My own copy is apparently a remaindered copy, and was sold for six Georgian pence, the equivalent of five millings of modern money.”
One word more. There is still a great field for the antiquarian who wishes to explore the early history of ski-ing in Scandinavia. As I know next to no Norwegian or Swedish I have contented myself with a very brief summary of the early history of ski-ing, and have relied almost exclusively on the excellent historical chapters in ” The Ski-Runner” by E. C. Richardson, and on Crichton Somerville’s contribution to “Ski-Running.
I am mainly interested in recording the later history of ski-ing: the period which opens with the introduction of ski-ing into Germany and Switzerland. And so, though my first chapter is only a tentative sketch of the earlier phases of the sport, I hope that the later chapters, which record for the first time in consecutive form the story of more recent developments, will not be without interest to the future historian.
Needless to say I write with more knowledge of British than of Continental ski-ing, and as I am writing for British readers in the main, the developments of the sport among our countrymen will be treated with a greater attention than they perhaps merit. I leave to Continental writers the task of filling in the gaps, and of completing this history by a detailed account of the evolution of the sport in their respective countries. My book is only an attempt to supply material for that comprehensive history which will, I hope, some day be written.
As far, however, as mountaineering on ski is concerned, I hope that I shall succeed in doing justice to the great pioneers of the new mountaineering, be they Swiss, German, or Austrian.