You may think that skiing is a modern sport, but it is actually one of the oldest forms of travel known to man! The word itself comes from the Icelandic word scidh, which means snowshoe or piece of wood.

Some historians claim that skiing goes back to the Stone Age, and they have found ancient carvings which show people on skis. Long before Christianity appeared, the ancient Lapps were known in Scandinavia as Skrid-Finnen, or “sliders.” They even had a goddess of ski, and their winter god was shown on a pair of skis with curved toes!