The Switzerland-based Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS) created World Snow Day to attract kids to snow-related sports and activities, mostly snow skiing and snowboarding. Their vision is to become a giant, worldwide snowy fiesta that includes tobogganing, making snow angels, building snowmen, having snowball fights, taking ice and snow baths, dancing in the snow, or for the kiddies, sharing your snow joys on social media.
A Closer Look at Skis and Skiing
A few years ago, the Fédération Internationale de Ski changed its name
The Federation finally acknowledged the existence of tens of millions of snowboarders by changing its name to the if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them Fédération Internationale de Ski et de Snowboard. FIS chose not to change their official initialism to FISS. Snow Industry News calls it “kind of” a change.
In every sport, membership drops off when people stop participating
Injury, crowds, long waiting times, fees and costs, availability, changing priorities, and loss of interest are some of the reasons people give for quitting the recreational sports of skiing, golf, and tennis. To grow, all recreational sports need to sieze kids’ interest and keep a steady stream of them coming into the game. This year there were more than 100 FIS worldwide events scheduled across three dozen countries, all using the theme Bring Children to the Snow.
Skiers and snowboarders are similar in some ways –
They both use equipment that rides atop the snow’s surface. Snowboarding is essentially skateboarding without the wheels. Just like skateboarders, snowboard riders are into doing old tricks and inventing new ones.
– but not in others
The stereotypical snowboarders are grungy kids pounding Red Bull and posting to social. Stereotypical aprés ski sophisticates are adults who wear couture while they sip vintages around a roaring fireplace. Skiers and snowboarders mix almost as well as Judge Smails and Al Czervik.
Getting around in the snow
For thousands of years, people who lived where the winters were harsh needed better ways of getting around on snow and ice than having to wade through it or slip and fall on it. It is no more likely that one person invented skis. People would have tried anything they could get their hands on until they found what worked best for them.
BBC tells us the ski was invented before the wheel
The oldest known ski was found in Finland in 3200 BC. Fragments of what are believed to be “ski-like” objects were found in Russia 3,000 years before that.
Faded drawings on cave walls, splinters of artifacts, and rock carvings are enough to keep the archaeologists arguing who and where crafted the first wooden skis. But even the Hatfields and McCoys agree that it was many thousands of years ago that skis were invented in extreme-winter territories to make point-to-point travel easier on winter ice and in snow.
Skis were not invented to cross stretches of snow
They were first used to cross stretches of ice, especially in marshy wetlands that froze solid in winter. Slippery ice was hard to walk on but easy to glide over. After falling enough times, Og (Flintstonian for John Doe) and his pals would have figured that it was easier to keep their balance if they cut a branch from a tree and used it as an outrigger. Inevitably, of course, two poles were found to be better than one.
In the 1940s, downhill skiing took over in popularity from cross-country skiing
Downhill skiing was a breeze, and the faster you went the more thrilling the trip. The downside, of course, was that once skiers got to the bottom of the hill, they had to go back to the top if they wanted to do it again. Carrying one’s skis and poles back up steep hills in the snow was nearly an Olympic event as well, meaning only the fittest had the strength and stamina to climb all the way to the top of steep slopes.
The rest had to get a ride back to the top of the run by waiting at the bottom until a jingling horse-drawn sleigh would take a dozen or so of them along a less-steep roundabout way back to the top for another downhill run.
And then along came James Curran
A full-time Union Pacific Railroad e engineer, Curran invented the first chairlift. It was a series of chairs hung from a cable moving in a continuous loop from the bottom of the ski run to the top. These cables were made of steel wire and ran in a continuous loop from the bottom of the hill to the top, operating much as today’s escalators, always in forward motion, so you just step on when you’re ready or step aside if you’re not.
Technological advances in ski equipment helped grow the sport by making it easier for more people
Heavy wooden skis gave way to lighter metals, today’s carbon fibers, and other exotic compounds. The plastic boot with step-in bindings was far easier to use than the old, stiff leather boots that had to be clamped to the skis. Narrow skis were just the thing for hard-packed ice and snow but soft, fluffy powdered snow needed wide and flat-bottomed skis.
The demand for places to ski led to the development of ski resorts, each bigger and better than the one before
Much the same thing happened with recreational golf years ago. Demand was rising at a rate that led too many tunnel-vision investors to make straight-line projections of unlimited rapid growth at the top of the industry. Like sheep, investors built thousands high-end destination courses designed by high-profile architects, some of whom knew what they’re doing.
Every year since 2006, more golf courses closed in the U.S. than new ones opened
The industry overbuilt and now had too much inventory (the number of golf courses) just while demand (the number of golfers) had begun a long, steady decline. As millions of golfers left the game and thousands Also making things tough for the golf industry is that more people quit playing each year than take up the game. The choice of people taking up the game is TopGolf, sort of a Dave & Buster’s with a large outdoor spacing for Hit-and-Giggle outings with family, friends, and co-workers.
Some leading indicators are pointing toward distress in the ski industry
The January 17, 2025 edition of the Wall Street Journal ran an article called Vail Resorts Has an Epic Problem. In a January 2005 Atlantic article, a former ski instructor talked about the ski patrollers’ strike for higher wages and better treatment. Central to striking workers’ complaints is the local housing crisis, where nine out of ten ski resort employees can’t afford to live where they work. You can read more about it in Daniel Block’s How the Ski Business Got Too Big for Its Boots.
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The author is a researcher, writer, teacher, and storyteller who looks at old things in new ways, sees the commonplace in greater detail, and explains complex subject matter in simple, conversational language. More than 400 of his articles are posted on this site.
Bonus
Eddie the Eagle, real name Michael Edwards, was Great Britain’s first Olympic ski jumper. After finishing dead last in both of his events, he took up a side hustle as a talk show darling, media celebrity, and product pitchman who appeared on the Masked Dancer and Dancing on Ice shows on the Beeb.
