Cross-country history.

Downhill may be the most popular kind of skiing, but one look at cross-country skiing's Norwegian history makes downhill look like an Alpine baby. Here are just a few timely examples:

1. Four-thousand-year-old rock carvings found in Norway show people on cross-country-type skis.

2. More than twenty prehistoric skis have been found in Norway--one more than 2,000 years old.

3. Historic author Snorre Sturlason, who lived from 1179 to 1241, wrote about Norwegian kings using skis as a mode of transportation.

4. Warriors called Birkebeiners rescued the king of Norway's son from enemy soldiers by skiing over the mountains in 1296.

5. The first Norwegian skis came to America with immigrants in 1825.

6. Cross-country skiers started with just one pole, but added a second in 1887.

7. Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen skied across Greenland's icecap from east to west in 1888.