SKI-ING.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143783, 6 May 1912, Page 5

SKI-ING.

NEW SPOUT FOR NEW ZEALAND.

Captain Head, of the Royal Automobile Club, London, who has been paying a visit to New Zealand, and who has been recalled to Loudon owing to a family bereavement in connection with the'wreck of the Titanic, has been interesting himself for some time past in establishing the Norwegian sport of ski-ing in this country. Initially he endeavoured to get the Tourist Department to take up the matter, but as they proved hike-warm, lie induced the Mount Cook Motor Co. to take it up, and that company is importing fifty pairs of Norwegian ski which'they propose to hire out to those taking up the sport at Fairlie, and perhaps at Mount Cook, in both of which places there are excellent ski-ing grounds. Captain Head himself has indulged in the pastime for some weeks on the Tasman and Mueller Glaciers, and speaks in high terms of the sport to be obtained both there and in the vicinity of Fairlie.

“It’s like no other sport in the world,” says the captain. “One tiros of skating and other winter sports, hut never of ski-ing. In Norway it is as popular as cycling is in Christchurch, and there are no gatherings more popular than the big ski meetings held in different parts of the country. Everyone skis in Norway—it is practically'the only way to get about, and in Canada they are rapidly displacing the snow shoes. It is becoming very popular at Kosciusko, in Australia. I induced a man in Sydney to import 70 pairs of Norwegian ski, and be sold out the lot three weeks after they were landed. Then yon must remember it was the ski which took Amundsen to the South I?ole. The distances which ho covered wore wonderful, and ho could never have done them but for the ski.

Captain Head explained that ski are made of picked ash or hickory, preferably the former, and are seven feet in length. When these laths of wood are strapped to a pair of stout boots, and the experienced wearer essays a journey down a sloping hill of snow, the sensation, is wonderfully exhilarating. Ski-jumping is the recreation of experts, and to become a jumper one must practice very small jumps at the beginning, gradually , increasing them in height as he learns the knack of landing in safety. It is necessary in jumping to land on a slope. It would never do to land on a flat as one would stop dead, and’sustain a considerable shaking if nothing else. So that one has to bo prepared for the slide whilst in the air.

“Frankly,” said Captain Head, “I am mad on it, and I think it will be a popular sport in New Zealand, because it is not expensive and the skiing grounds are within easy reach. A pair of Norwegian ski costs 30s r.t Homo.”