The Way to Mora is about why I was skiing, not how to ski--because I
didn't yet know how. I had very nearly died in 1979 after a harsh
voyage in an open boat at sea. Recovering in hospital, I read a
magazine article called "Langlaufers Live Longer." Good enough!
I rushed off to Sweden--with only a few days of skiing in Vermont under
my belt--to enter the historical skiing event called "The Vasalopp."
It is an 87 kilometer journey that celebrates, every year, the route
skied by Gustav Ericson Vasa on his way to becoming the first elected
King of Sweden in 1421.
The book is also a photographic record of this empowering journey. It
has been described as a "Sufi similitude" for its spiritual
content. Because I was slow and started at the back of 8,700 skiers,
every time I reached the food tables set up in each village we passed
through, the food was gone. It snowed throughout the day and it took
me ten hours to finish the journey. But marathon ski-racing became my sport and
a metaphor for life. I would make that same journey four more times and
reach Mora in six hours instead of ten.
Beautifully written... beautiful idea, hopefully it will inspire the
uninitiated.
Ian Menzies,
Associate Editor of the Boston Globe
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