Sticks & Poles - A Ski History

1909 - Illus. showing proper use of poles in braking and stopping. E.C. Richardson, The Ski-Runner, Uxbridge, England: Hutchings Printing Works, 1909, 117

1909 - Photos of Telemark (l.) and Christiania (r.) down- hill turns without the use of poles. E.C. Richardson, The Ski-Runner, Uxbridge, England: Hutchings Printing Works, 1909, 132-133

The proper way to stem and use the “pole” is clearly detailed by W. Rickmer Rickmers in his Ski-ing for Beginners and Mountaineers, 1909:

‘Fig. 50 illustrates the proper position of the ski in stemming. The arrow s is the fall of the slope, for the reader is looking straight at the mountain; d is the direction in which the runner wishes to go obliquely across the slope. This direction is on the whole that of the glider g. The braker b brushes the snow with its entire length, thus producing a broad track, the direct evidence of the braking power, i.e., friction. Therefore, weight off the braker for going, on for stopping. The steeper the slope the wider must be the angle formed by the two ski. The dot p shows whereabouts the point of the pole should be, that is, a little behind the upper foot…’ ¹⁶

1909 - Photo of proper way to stem and use of the pole. W. Rickmer Rickmers, Ski-ing for Beginners and Mountaineers, New York, NY: Charles Scribner`s Sons, 1909, (Opp.) 67

1909 - Illus. of proper way to stem and the use of the pole. W. Rickmer Rickmers, Ski-ing for Beginners and Mountaineers, New York, NY: Charles Scribner`s Sons, 1909, 66-67, 69