Due to the initiative of the Railway Department in providing special “Snow Trains,” hundreds of New Zealanders who had never indulged in snow sport are beginning to find new life in the thrills of winter sport at Mt. Cook and the Tongariro National Park. The initiative, too, of the Government Tourist and Publicity Department in securing professional coaches to show New Zealanders how to ski is helping to improve the standard of those who could ski—after a fashion—and has taught hundreds of city dwellers the thrills of racing down a snowy bank at 60 miles per hour. Incidentally, it is not generally known that skis were first used in New Zealand in 1893—and then for the first time in the world! In an editorial in the “Australian and New Zealand Ski Year Book” there is this paragraph:

“We hope that readers will not miss the significance of Mr. Mannering's article in this issue on the use of ski on Mount Cook in the ‘nineties. This was a most extraordinary feat—in its conception no less than its execution, for it must be remembered that this was contemporaneous with the very first use of ski for Alpine purposes anywhere else in the world, a development of which Mr. Mannering and his companions were completely unaware. That they should have used ski on as formidable a virgin climb as Mount Cook then was, shows courage, enterprise and prevision unexcelled in the history of the sport, and New Zealand ski-mountaineers may well be proud to trace their origins back so far and to such a feat.”

The article mentioned was written by Mr. G. E. Mannering, who was accompanied by the late Mr. Marmaduke Dixon on alpine expeditions. Mr. Mannering wrote:

“… . My old mountaineering mate, the late Marmaduke Dixon, and I had experienced several narrow escapes from disaster in this connection, especially on one occasion near the head of Linda Glacier, when crossing a snow bridge. I had crawled over safely and was well situated above the ‘schrund’ with a good hold. Dixon, unfortunately, walked over, instead of crawling, and went through the bridge up to his armpits. I held on for dear life, while the snow broke away in front of Dixon till he arrived at the edge of the ice, where he ultimately got out with the aid of his ice-axe and the pull on the rope.

“This incident was a very close call for both of us, and set us thinking upon some plan to lessen the dangers. We had both been reading Nansen's ‘First Crossing of Greenland,’ and from his descriptions of ‘Skilöbning’ concluded that ‘ski’ would provide a great measure of safety in crossing covered crevasses and questionable snow bridges, as well as lessening the intolerable labour of plunging through soft snow—one of the great bugbears of climbing.

“Dixon, with his customary ingenuity, conceived the idea of utilising the ‘fans’ off a reaper and binder, which are shaped very much like ski and turn up at either end. The blades of these ‘fans’ were above six feet long, but rather narrower than the present-day average ski. I think their width was about three inches. I fancy they were made of hickory. We copied as closely as possible the fastenings given in Nansen's book, but there was a good deal of ‘adaptability’ about Dixon (I have known him to use a pair of white flannel trousers for a chimney in one of our camps in bad weather!)

“We first put them (and ourselves) to the test in November, 1893, after carrying them up to Glacier Dome at some 7,500 feet on the Mount Cook route. On that occasion T. C. Fyfe was with us, and to put him on more even terms with us, Dixon had spent half the night knocking up a third pair of ski from old packing cases at the Ball Hut. We found them an enormous advantage in crossing the Great Plateau and on the lower part of the Linda Glacier. They saved hours of ‘sounding’ for covered crevasses and almost banished the constant anxiety which accompanies such work… .”