ORAGE BLOG
Skikjøring With Team Canada in Norway
Posted by Neil Sotirakopoulos on November 13th 2009
Back in March TJ Schiller was called upon to put together a team from Canada for the Jon Olsson Super Sessions. A few weeks later TJ, Ian Cosco (CHUG), photographer Damian Cromwell, filmer Darren Rayner, and myself found ourselves in Norway filming TJ getting towed into a snowbank behind a horse. Here's a little behind the scenes action from our experience skikjøring in the country that gave the sport its name.
TJ Schiller
It was somewhere into our third or fourth day of walking around in the rain at the Jon Olsson Super Sessions looking for anything that we could film or jib when we first met Åge. He was in the process of unhitching his sleigh from two massive work horses. If I knew anything about horses I would tell you a lot more about how awesome they were. It didn't take long before Darren and I were both looking at each other half laughing "you thinking what I'm thinking?"
The crew left to right: Damian Cromwell, Neil Sotirakopoulos, Darren Rayner, Ian Cosco, TJ Schiller
After a quick realization that neither of us spoke the same language and some a-game charades trying to explain towing a skier behind the horse, Darren finally got someone at the front desk to help translate. "Translate" may not be the best way to describe what happened, but all we knew was to be outside of the hotel at 6am the next morning.
Canadians Skikjøring, circa 1912. (c) Canadian Ski Museum
Canadians Skikjøring, April 2009. Photo: Damian Cromwell
We were outside the next day before some teams had even gone to bed from the night before. We walked out of the hotel expecting to see Åge with a horse and a tow rope, but instead he was just waiting in his truck with the engine running. Thinking we were only in for a short ride, Darren and I hoped into the cab with our camera gear and TJ, Ian, and Damian jumped in the back with the rest of the gear and a 50 gallon drum we found on the side of the road the day before. 40 minutes later we were driving through a snowstorm passing cars on the double yellow in the Norwegian countryside with no idea where we were headed.
40 minutes later... still freezing.
The first thing we noticed when we arrived at Åge's farm were the fresh fox pelts hanging on the front porch, but we didn't stop at the house. Åge dropped us off on a snow packed road in the middle of the field and hardly spoke a word before driving off in the truck. For a few minutes I think everyone was wondering what we were doing in a field in the middle of nowhere with no idea how to get back and no viable means of communication, but everything became clear as we heard a diesel engine fire up and shortly later Åge came out from around one of the barns driving an industrial sized tractor with a front end bucket loader.
The video pretty much sums up the story from there on out. A couple crashes, a barrel jib, TJ stomped a rodeo, and lots of horse manure on the in-run!
Big thanks to Åge and the rest of the people we met in Norway and at Joss for their hospitality, horses, and good times. Seriously though, where else in the world would you meet someone outside a hotel who takes you back to their house to use their truck, tractor, horse, and spend a good part of the day helping you film a video for a ski contest? Norway rules.
And If anyone is wondering, yes, Chug is deathly afraid of horses.
It was somewhere into our third or fourth day of walking around in the rain at the Jon Olsson Super Sessions looking for anything that we could film or jib when we first met Åge. He was in the process of unhitching his sleigh from two massive work horses. If I knew anything about horses I would tell you a lot more about how awesome they were. It didn't take long before Darren and I were both looking at each other half laughing "you thinking what I'm thinking?"
After a quick realization that neither of us spoke the same language and some a-game charades trying to explain towing a skier behind the horse, Darren finally got someone at the front desk to help translate. "Translate" may not be the best way to describe what happened, but all we knew was to be outside of the hotel at 6am the next morning.
We were outside the next day before some teams had even gone to bed from the night before. We walked out of the hotel expecting to see Åge with a horse and a tow rope, but instead he was just waiting in his truck with the engine running. Thinking we were only in for a short ride, Darren and I hoped into the cab with our camera gear and TJ, Ian, and Damian jumped in the back with the rest of the gear and a 50 gallon drum we found on the side of the road the day before. 40 minutes later we were driving through a snowstorm passing cars on the double yellow in the Norwegian countryside with no idea where we were headed.
The first thing we noticed when we arrived at Åge's farm were the fresh fox pelts hanging on the front porch, but we didn't stop at the house. Åge dropped us off on a snow packed road in the middle of the field and hardly spoke a word before driving off in the truck. For a few minutes I think everyone was wondering what we were doing in a field in the middle of nowhere with no idea how to get back and no viable means of communication, but everything became clear as we heard a diesel engine fire up and shortly later Åge came out from around one of the barns driving an industrial sized tractor with a front end bucket loader.
The video pretty much sums up the story from there on out. A couple crashes, a barrel jib, TJ stomped a rodeo, and lots of horse manure on the in-run!
Big thanks to Åge and the rest of the people we met in Norway and at Joss for their hospitality, horses, and good times. Seriously though, where else in the world would you meet someone outside a hotel who takes you back to their house to use their truck, tractor, horse, and spend a good part of the day helping you film a video for a ski contest? Norway rules.
And If anyone is wondering, yes, Chug is deathly afraid of horses.
