Skiing necesse est -- Ski tracks in the Milky Way -- The earliest written sources -- Old Norse sagas and the Finnish national epic, Kalevala -- The first printed sources -- Norway : the cradle of skiing as a sport -- The influence of Rousseau -- The ski in foreign literature -- Evolution of skiing as a sport -- The men of Telemark -- Development of technique and equipment -- The first Nordic marathon -- The conquest of the mountain world -- Fridtjof Nansen and the first crossing of Greenland -- The Nordic Olympia -- The waited Telemark ski -- The rise of ski touring and the misadventures of Roald Amundsen -- As important as the plays of Ibsen -- The spread of skiing on the Continent -- Norwegians bring skiing to Austria-Hungary and Montenegro -- Skiing comes to Switzerland -- Davos : the cradle of the ski resort -- The English skiing at Davos -- Matthias Zdarsky -- St Moritz -- Skiing in France -- Polar exploration -- The inventions that founded modern skiing -- The New World -- The study of snow structure -- The first Winter Olympics at Chamonix -- Mass winter tourism -- The international recognition of downhill skiing -- Skiing mechanized and politicized -- Military skiing -- Skiing since 1945