Did you know that most of the skis and boots used by the 10th Mountain Division in World War II came from right here in Maine? Most older skiers know these things, but many younger skiers have no idea what those ski troops used for gear as they trained at Camp Hale in Colorado for deployment in the Italian campaign.

And how many of those soldiers first learned to ski here in Maine.

The history of Maine skiing dates back over 140 years when a member of the Maine legislature imported Swedes in order to settle the northern part of the state. They settled the town of New Sweden in Aroostook County and brought skis with them to get around in winter. Glen Parkinson documented much of this history in his book, “First Tracks,” and you can learn a lot about this and more at the Ski Museum of Maine on Church Street in Farmington.

Next weekend, Sugarloaf skiers will get a chance to view a traveling display from the museum at the Maine Ski Heritage Classic. For the second straight year, this event will draw attention to the museum and raise much needed funds to keep it going. From 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., the museum will have a display that includes some vintage skis, pins and patches from various ski areas, and ski clubs, posters and ads from the past and other artifacts from Maine’s skiing history.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, there will be a group wearing vintage ski equipment and ski wear. After a group photo at 3 p.m., the skiers will parade down to the Sugarloaf Inn where there will be a reception from 4 to 6 p.m., with a silent and live auction with Dick Keenan. There will be over 75 items to bid on, including ski equipment, ski wear, tuning equipment, golf and ski packages and more. Details of the event can be found on the museum Web site at www.skimuseumofmaine.org.

Getting back to the opening question – those skis were made by Paris Manufacturing Company in South Paris. The museum has a number of different Paris models along with the all white ones with holes in the tips made for the U.S. Army. The holes in the tips were to allow the skis to be tied together with three or four pair forming a litter for wounded troops.

The boots were made by Bass, a top ski boot manufacturer in the days of leather and during the war they switched their entire production to boots for the 10th Mountain division. The museum has ads and posters touting the early models from Bass.

You can also learn about Maine skiers who fought with the 10th Mountain. A complete list of those who served in this much decorated division is posted at the museum. There are skis of every vintage on display, early wood skis, the first metal skis and more modern skis. The skis are equipped with bindings of

There are jumping skis, cross country skis and some of the short wood skis produced for the graduated length method of teaching in the sixties. There are numerous boots on display showing the evolution of this gear. Some might remember when plastic displaced leather, and there are early models of Langes, the first plastic boot. When Bass stopped making leather ski boots. they imported plastic boots for their stores and to wholesale. One was the Rosemount, a side entry model that used pads of various sizes to alter the fit. You can check these out as well.

An interesting bit of history features a pair of skiers in Portland. One was Theo Johnsen (It was Johnson, but he changed it when he got into the ski business to appear more Scandinavian), an English immigrant who wrote North America’s first ski book, “The Winter Sport of Skiing.” He was manufacturing skis in his factory in Portland and the book was half instructional and half catalog when printed in 1905. He was ahead of his time and his factory only survived for a few years. The book is available in reprint at the museum, and the museum has also acquired a set of his sample skis which will eventually be displayed there.

Another was Birger Olsen, a Norwegian ski jumper who wound up in Portland in 1918, after arriving in the country in Berlin, N.H. He built a ski jump on the city’s West End and his winter carnivals drew as many as 10,000 to watch the jumping in the 1920s.

The Maine Ski Hall of Fame is a division of the Ski Museum of Maine and the programs from the first six years of inductions are on hand, along with a plaque with plates the list the members of each class to date. That plaque will be in display at Sugarloaf as well.

This is only a bit of Maine’s ski history and what you can find at the museum. The programs for the Hall of Fame contain biographies of the 58 inducted to date and those biographies comprise a written record of key pieces of our ski history. You can actually read those program books on the Web site at www.skimueumofmaine.org. You can also learn how to join the museum and help with the work of preserving the history of a sport that has become a way of life and a critical part of Maine’s economy.

See you next weekend at Sugarloaf.

Dave Irons is a freelance writer who lives in Westbrook.