Maine preserves skiing heritage in museum

FARMINGTON, Maine - The popularity of skiing snowballed in America in the 1920s and '30s, creating a new industry for a number of companies that cropped up over schuss-happy Maine. Then came World War II.

"Please have patience," Maine's Bass Boots advertised to anxious ski-boot customers after it turned its attention to making cold-climate boots for troops. After the war ended, a new Bass ad in 1946 proclaimed the good news, "You can buy Bass boots again."

That's just one snippet of history on view at the new Ski Museum of Maine, which opened Dec. 1 in this college town in the heart of Maine ski country.

The history of skiing goes back thousands of years to northern Europe and Asia. Pieces of skis dating back 5,000 years have been found in peat bogs, and cave drawings just as old suggest early use of a form of skis, said Glenn Parkinson, author of "First Tracks: Stories from Maine's Skiing Heritage" and a ski museum board member.

The new museum helps to secure Maine's place in the sport through its collection of wooden and newer skis and equipment, ad displays reflecting earlier eras of skiing, and a growing archive of records, documents and memorabilia.

But it's more than just a collection of artifacts, Parkinson said.

"Heritage is the feel of the wet wool and the taste of the hot chocolate from the years gone by," Parkinson said.

The museum is housed in the same building where the Sugarloaf USA logo, a blue-and-white triangle that's well-recognized in Maine and beyond, was first designed, according to the museum's consulting curator Megan Roberts.

Sugarloaf Mountain, in Carrabassett Valley, and the Sunday River resort, in Newry, are sponsoring the museum's opening exhibit, which runs through March.

Maine follows other states, notably Colorado, and neighboring New Hampshire and Vermont, in establishing a ski museum. The New England Ski Museum, of which Parkinson is president, is located at Franconia, N.H. Vermont's ski museum is at Stowe.

The timing of the museum's opening is important. With the first generation of Maine skiers who took up the sport in the 1930s and '40s dying, a cache of historically valuable items in basements, attics and garages is being unearthed, Roberts said.

On the day the museum opened, many of the 200 people who stopped by offered old skis, poles and boots. When it was clear their donations would be accepted, some returned with additional gear, Roberts said. The museum now has ample displays and more in an archive and storage area upstairs, but it hasn't yet reached the point of turning things away, she said.

The 2006-07 exhibit focuses on Maine businesses that blossomed around the sport, such as Wilton's Bass Shoe, Norway's W.F. Tubbs Co. and Bangor's S.L. Crosby. *