BETHEL — The Bethel Outing Club and Ski Museum of Maine will offer a free fireside chat on Maine’s rich skiing heritage at 6 p.m. Sunday, April 10, at the Bethel Inn tavern.

The 50-minute digital slide show, titled “Maine’s Nordic Skiing Heritage: 1870-2011” was produced by the Kingfield-based museum.

The talk will be preceded at 5 p.m. by a potluck supper for outing club members and friends.

For more information, call Brad Clarke at 824-4692.

Narrator Scott Andrews said Thursday in a report that approximately 120 photos and other graphic images — some more than a century old — will be shown.

The pictures were loaned to the ski museum by historical societies and private individuals in Bethel, Newry, Andover, Rumford and around the state, and then converted to digital slides for the fireside chat.

Andrews, who is the museum’s curator and research director, has been a snow sports journalist for 24 years and is a writer for several magazines, including Skiing Heritage.

He said the story of Maine skiing starts in the late 19th century with the arrival of Scandinavian immigrants in Aroostook and Oxford counties.

“Skiing was strictly for transportation during that era,” he said.

It evolved into a sport in the early years of the 20th century. A Portland man wrote America’s first book on the sport of skiing in 1905, and the Poland Spring resort began promoting winter sports getaways in 1909.

Winter carnivals were common in dozens of Maine towns in the 1920s and 1930s, helping to popularize skiing, Andrews said.

“Ski jumping was the marquee spectator event, but cross country skiing became a popular participant sport,” he said.

As ski lifts proliferated in the late 1930s, downhill skiing became the dominant form of the sport and cross country entered a long period of eclipse — except in racing programs at schools such as Gould Academy in Bethel.

After a 30-year period of declining interest, Nordic skiing regained its popularity in the 1970s, he said.

Much of this resurgence can be credited to the growth of ski touring centers in the Bethel area, including trail networks at Gould Academy, Sunday River, Carter’s Farm and the Bethel Inn.

Cross country skiing is still on the upswing, said Andrews, who expects the trend to continue.

“Skiing has been part of the Maine way of life since the late 1800s, offering recreation and competition to both residents and visitors,” he said.

“Our museum’s objective is to feed the passion of Maine skiers and to illustrate the significance of our sport to our state’s lifestyle and economy.”

There is no charge for the program, but donations are gratefully accepted, Andrews said.

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