The word ski comes from the old Norse word ‘skiõ’ which meant split piece of wood or firewood, and there have been almost as many different kinds of skis and techniques as there have been years of use.
Asymmetrical skis, first described over 500 years ago, were used in northern Finland and Sweden, even up until the 1930s. On one foot, skiers wore a long straight non-arching ski for sliding, while the other foot was outfitted with a shorter ski for kicking. The bottom of the short ski was, sometimes, covered with an animal skin to aid in the kicking, while the bottom of the longer ski was treated with slippery animal fat to help with gliding.
But, it was the traditional 10 foot long variety of ski that was used by our Sierra skiing legend, Snowshoe Thompson. Mr. Thompson was born Jon Torsteinsson Rue in Austbygdi, Norway in 1827. He emigrated to the United States with his family when he was 10 years old, and they settled in the mid-west. Fourteen years later, after driving a herd of milk cows from Wisconsin to Placerville, John Albert Thompson settled in the Sierras. There, he tried his hand at mining, eventually saving enough money to buy a small farm.