Discovering the

Downhill Art

I’ve never been a great one for winter sports.

I did try snowboarding once and ended up in

hospital, so before I launched myself down

a hill on a gravity powered sled I reckoned

I needed to find out a bit about how this sort

of thing has been done in the past.

HE history of winter sports stretches

back to the middle of the nineteenth

century, and the British have always

had a hand in it. Back in the bad old days,

only the very wealthy could afford holidays.

The poor working people did just that – they

worked – and most wealthy people didn’t really

need to work at all.

T

For the good of their health, the rich went

to the seaside. But then the railways started

shipping in the less well-heeled for day trips,

and the British seaside began to lose its appeal

for the upper classes. British summer weather

was, in any case, hardly reliable, so they

started heading south for the warmth of the

Mediterranean sun. They also discovered that,

in the Alps, they could enjoy sunshine and

fresh air at altitude as well as trying the health-

giving mineral water treatments in the alpine

spa towns. Visiting the spas was recommended

by the medical profession for patients with

chest complaints because the air was so clean

and dry.

One of those towns was St Moritz, where the

owner of the Kulm Hotel, Johannes Badrutt,

was chatting with a handful of English

gentlemen one day in the autumn of 1864 as,

with the summer over, they were contemplating

the long journey home. Badrutt explained to

208    world’s fastest sled

his guests that, during the winter, the mountain

weather was spectacular.

He promised them that they would love the

clear, fresh winter air even more than they did

the summer weather. He then offered them

free accommodation and guaranteed that he

would pay their fares for their journeys home

if they didn’t enjoy the winter in St Moritz.

In return, all they had to do was to tell their

friends what a wonderful time they had.

Badrutt knew that he would be able to tempt

the English gentlemen with the kind of wager

that they couldn’t lose – yet it was the canny

Johannes who turned out to be the winner. The

Englishmen stayed for more than five months,

walking in the snow-covered hills, skating on

frozen lakes, enjoying sleigh rides and relaxing

on the hotel terrace in the sunshine. Naturally,

when Badrutt’s guests travelled home in the

spring with suntanned faces they raved about

St Moritz, and within a couple of years the

Kulm Hotel was as busy during the winter

season as it was during the summer.

The Englishmen stayed for more

than five months, walking in the

snow-covered hills, skating

on frozen lakes, enjoying sleigh

rides and relaxing on the hotel

terrace in the sunshine.

Naturally the winter visitors needed to keep

themselves entertained and it didn’t take long

for them to try tobogganing. It’s a funny word,

‘toboggan’, isn’t it? It’s not really English, or

even European, at all. It actually comes from

the Algonquian language – the Algonquins

are native Canadian people – and just means