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Sun Valley Magazine – Winter 2022

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January 11, 2023
sunvalleymag.com

Skijouring

Blending Two Cultures—Cowboy Horsemanship and Wintersports—in the Wood River Valley

 It’s wintertime in Scandinavia, a long time ago. There are no cars. No buses. No roads. But you’ve got to get somewhere. So, you harness your favorite reindeer, strap on your best pair of wooden skis, and give Dasher a “giddy up!” or the Scandinavian equivalent. Then, hanging on tight to the rope tied to the mighty quadruped, you both set off across the snowy landscape under the glow of the Northern Lights.

That’s skijoring. Or, rather, that is how it started.

Like many recreational activities and sports that we enjoy, skijoring was once just a simple form of transportation. By the 20th century, it was treated as a sport in Europe and Russia, making its debut at the Nordic Games held in Stockholm in 1901. The earliest known record of Americans participating in skijoring as a pastime was in Lake Placid, New York, in 1915.

Traditional skijoring, roughly translated into “ski driving,” is a single skier pulled quickly by a reindeer, dog, snowmobile or horse through a snow-packed racecourse. American cowboys and ranchers took the sport and added Western elements. They made it rowdy. Western-equestrian skijoring typically consists of a team of three: a horse, rider and skier. The horse and rider pull a skier through a course as fast as possible.

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