Although spring has arrived, winter sport enthusiasts are probably already dreaming about next year’s season. Downhill skiing and cross-country skiing are among the most popular winter sports in Canada, but there’s a lesser-known exercise with a long history in the annals of arctic recreation: skijoring.
The sport has roots in Scandinavia, and skijoring’s name comes from a Norwegian word which means ski driving. It involves a skier being pulled across snowscapes by a horse, or more commonly, a dog. Skijoring is basically a combination of dog sledding and cross-country skiing, although athletes sometimes perform jumps and other tricks, which gives skijoring parallels to downhill skiing as well.
If you dig into the history of winter sports in Canada, you’ll come across skijoring. For instance, it was a popular activity at the Banff Winter Carnival in the early twentieth century, and you can still see skijoring exhibitions in the town today, during the SnowDays Festival.
The sport is done for fun now, but it echoes back to days in which survival in arctic climates depended heavily on the relationship between animals and humans. A famous example is Balto, the sled dog who led a team across Alaska to deliver lifesaving diphtheria serum in 1925. But hundreds of years before that, the Sami people skijored behind reindeer, across long distances.
If you want to try this time-honoured sport with your dog(s) next winter, you’ll need a special skijoring harness so your best friend can take you on this unique skiing experience. Full grown dogs of any breed can participate, but canines weighing 35 pounds and over are the best candidates for the sport. Skijoring may be the next best thing to racing in the Iditarod!
Sources
Fountaine, Charles J. Ph.D., FACSM. SHAREABLE RESOURCE: Ten Ideas to Stay Physically Active During Winter (Five for Snow Lovers, Five for Snowbirds). ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal 27(1):p 56, 1/2 2023. | DOI: 10.1249/FIT.0000000000000826
What Is Skijoring? Everything You Need To Know. Neewa. https://www.neewadogs.com/pages/skijoring
SnowDays Festival: Skijoring. Banff and Lake Louise Tourism. https://www.banfflakelouise.com/events/snowdays/skijoring
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