By Gavin Kentch
It is summer. Your favorite skier is training. You should be training. I am training, somewhat, and parenting, somewhat, and writing articles, somewhat, but to be candid site readership here plummets every April no matter what I do, and I sort of want a break after working weekends all World Cup season anyway. Not to mention to spend more time these days playing with my lovely children.
But I know what it is like for you, dear reader, in this difficult estival time. Believe me that I have been there with you — am there with you — as you wake up each morning and cycle through the ski news websites by rote, blindly hoping that this time there will be new content to consume to ward off the work day (I may be projecting here).
Expressen längdskidor. NRK Langrenn. The largely dormant /r/xcworldcup/ sub on Reddit (thank you to whoever posts Nordic Insights pieces there on occasion; I appreciate the 44 lifetime referral links). SkinnySki. SederSkier. Yes, even FasterSkier (though their publishing a “Johaug will probably come back for the Olympics” thinkpiece on *checks notes* May 26 was certainly a choice).
Bottom line, there’s just not that much news out there this time of year, no matter how much you look for it. I do, in fact, have quite a few longform features in the queue for this humble platform; there are stories that I want to tell, and the middle of the World Cup season is, logistically speaking, not exactly the easiest time to tell them. But, do what I may, it is summer. People are training. That’s… sort of it.
Accordingly, please enjoy my unscientific roundup of English-language literature on cross-country skiing, on the assumption that a little more #content would not be unappreciated as the calendar turns to May. I am not claiming that this is a comprehensive survey, but I also suspect that the pickings get pretty slim after the titles I have collected here. Audun Endestad’s 1986 masterwork Skating for Cross-Country Skiers still goes hard, though.
Titles are organized in, uh, the order that I thought of them. Reviews are, shall we say, focused primarily on the positive aspects of each work. I don’t want to be pollyannaish, and it’s clear that I typically call out mediocrity where I see it, but that said this is a small community, and I know the lion’s share of authors mentioned here. I am too nice to proffer fully honest reviews of each book’s detriments, is what I am trying to say.
Nearly every work here can be found via the online retailer of your choice, with Jessie’s memoir and maybe Bill McKibben’s most likely to physically exist on a neighborhood bookstore shelf, but probably nothing else on this list. For Endless Winter, try something in the Alibris/AbeBooks/ThriftBooks neck of the woods; search under ISBN 9780964392700. For Trails That Never End, you need an Amazon account, and $2.99 (find it here). You do not need a physical Kindle device; I read it on my computer screen.
Only six months to go till the opening race of the 2025/2026 World Cup season! Hang in there, and happy reading.
Jessie Diggins, Brave Enough (2020)
If you are at this site, you have presumptively heard of this work. Have probably already read it, in fact.
I wrote a 4,000-word review of Jessie’s memoir five years ago; it is linked in below, so I will not repeat myself here. TLDR, the work is an as-told-to production that does a remarkably faithful job of transferring Diggins’s voice to the printed page; to say that the writing sounds like her voice is, if anything, to understate the matter.
Diggins, through a Minnesotan co-author, takes readers through her bucolic childhood, her ravages with an eating disorder, and roughly the first half of her professional skiing career, culminating with the gold medal in Pyeongchang. I found the childhood section fine but unmemorable, the racing part upbeat, and the eating disorders part riveting. What is significant to an individual reader is of course a matter of taste, but I suspect that the real talk from the book’s middle will stick with most long after the easy lessons from the start and finish have faded from memory.
Luke Bodensteiner, Endless Winter: An Olympian’s Journal (1994) and Pete Vordenberg, Momentum: Chasing the Olympic Dream (2002)
These two works deserve to be read together. They both feature male stars prominent in the same era of American skiing, both of whom went on to have significant roles in USSS, née USSA, for some time after their racing career had concluded (yes this makes their complaining about ski team leadership in their athlete days all the funnier in retrospect).
From a narratological standpoint, Bodensteiner’s work is the Iliad and Vordenberg’s the Odyssey. Endless Winter tells the story of a set time period, in linear order, from start to finish, as Bodensteiner effectively expands his training log for the 1993/1994 season into book form. Momentum, on the other hand, is more discursive, spiraling in and out in great temporal whorls as it zooms forward and then looks backward once more, covering both Vordenberg’s childhood and ski career. Neither book is, forgive me, great literature. Both are compulsively readable. If you do not feel motivated to go train after reading either of them, you are probably dead inside.
Both works are also timeless for their portrayal of American ski training. Some logistical things are clearly now different; we have cellphones and YouTube and Instagram and so on, so some ancillary parts of training are easier to schedule or coordinate. But fundamentally, both athletes were doing the same thing, thirty years ago, that American skiers are doing now. Granted, the international results are now better across the board; the reasons for that one fall squarely above my pay grade. But the rhythm of the seasons, the thrill of competition and the enforced boredom of travel, the bubble of high-level skiing, the taco stands in Bend, and so much more about both men’s lives — plus ça change.
Bill McKibben, Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously (2000)
This is, along with Jessie’s piece, the title on this list that most people have probably heard of, if not read. McKibben’s project started out as effectively an exercise in personal exploration in the form of a training log: Take a middle-aged man and train him like a pro skier for a year and see what happens. But midway through the year his father grows terminally ill, and the work becomes, in McKibben’s able hands, one part training log and two parts extended meditation on the meaning of endurance.
This is the only pure work of literature on this list, by my hopefully not too elitist standards; McKibben is a better writer than you, and than me, and it shows. If you come seeking just a training précis, you will be disappointed. But come prepared for some larger thoughts on Why Are We All Doing This and What Does It Mean to Endure, filtered through a now slightly dated fin de siècle lens (Subaru Factory Team! Ben Husaby! Torbjörn Karlsen!), and you will learn something.
I cannot help but note here my own personal history with this book: I first read an early version of it in Outside Magazine in the late nineties, back when Outside was a magazine that was good, not something bundled with Outside+ and Outside TV that was not good. The print magazine came to my house. I read it in our living room. I was 17. The author seemed (sorry, Bill, if you’re reading this, which I flatter myself you could well be) impossibly old, and my own middle age not so much far off on the horizon as a thing not even capable of existing within the visible universe.
Now I am 43, a full six years older than McKibben was at the start of his experiment, and both my waistline and my distance points have been steadily expanding for the past five years now. A work facing one’s athletic senescence head on hits different now than it did when I was finishing high school. So read this, now, because it is a fine work of literature. Just don’t be surprised if you take different things from it depending on whether your comp license starts with a 4- or a 7-.
Peggy Shinn, World Class: The Making of the U.S. Women’s Cross-Country Ski Team (2018)
I wanted to like this book more than I did, to be honest. I think that it could be either a good portrait of the American women’s team in the Kikkan/Jessie era, or a business school case study in “what makes a good team” and “what does leadership look like,” The work as written rather tries to do both at the same time, and imho often feels forced as a result. Many sections also desperately needed more fact checking; I don’t know if you know this, but getting the details right is very important to me. If you are reading this you are probably less caustic than I am and will probably enjoy it more, but to be honest it was not my favorite work on this list.
Tim Kelley, Trails That Never End: Traveling Alaska on the Lightest of Skis (2013)
Tim Kelley is a legend. He was on the U.S. Ski Team in the Jim Galanes era. He has done everything in Alaska backcountry nordic skiing, and probably did it first, but is too modest to talk about it. He did not, obviously, invent crust skiing, but he has done more than anyone else to popularize it in Alaska and to democratize access to the sport. His blog posts cataloguing his adventures are legend.
And by the way, he skied the 900-plus miles of the Iditarod Trail to Nome, starting in downtown Anchorage. In 23 days. With early-90s gear. Amidst a volcanic eruption. He and Bad Bob Baker reprised their efforts a few years later over the Yukon Quest Trail, which is like the Iditarod. But colder. And longer. And more difficult.
The night before the latter ski, the pair had a chance encounter with a trailbreaker for that year’s Quest. “He drew the route on our maps,” Kelley writes, “for the section from McCabe Creek to Dawson that we were unsure about. These were the days before personal GPS units became popular. So we were happy to acquire any information about the trail that we could.” The next day the duo happily headed out onto the trail, impossibly heavy sleds in tow.
I don’t want to overstate this, but, truly, these were different men in a different time. The entire book is engrossing. You should read it. Find it on Amazon here (e-book only, which is honestly probably the best format for the plethora of classic photos included).
J. Hamilton Ray (author) and Pascal Lemaître (illustrator), Squirrels on Skis (2013)
This book is a delight for the kids in your life, of any age. It rhymes, but in a humorous and not annoying manner. It is fun to read aloud. It has a happy ending. It has a great moral, on the importance of proper fueling when training long hours. Truly, there is a lot to like here.
Mary Calhoun (author) and Erick Ingraham (illustrator), Cross-Country Cat (1986)
This work, the other of the two children’s nordic ski titles I am aware of, sounds in a slightly different register. Henry, a Siamese cat, is inadvertently left behind at the family cabin following a trip. Undeterred, he fashions skis and poles from the trees around him, ties a sack of mice to his tail — again, we see the importance of proper fueling! — and sets off through the woods to find his family.
Classic skiing is hard, actually, and so Henry encounters multiple setbacks along the way, but it is giving away little if I reveal that he is ultimately able to overcome these obstacles and to be reunited with his family. My classic striding should be so lucky.
One unimpressed reviewer archly noted that the work “expects us to believe that Henry can take a brief lesson about skiing and try to reverse engineer a pair of cat skis. It was just beyond suspension of disbelief.” If you are this much of a truther, you should probably not read this book to your children. Or most other books, honestly. But I liked it.
Honorable mention
Here are some skiing books that I have not personally read. All save Rodgers’s work are self-published, fwiw.
Ryan Rodgers, Winter’s Children: A Celebration of Nordic Skiing (2021)
Per Goodreads:
“The story of Nordic skiing in the Midwest — its origins and history, its star athletes and races, and its place in the region’s social fabric and the nation’s winter recreation.
“In the winter of 1841, a Norwegian immigrant in Wisconsin strapped on a pair of wooden boards and set off across the snow to buy flour — leaving tracks that perplexed his neighbors and marked the arrival of Nordic skiing in America. To this day, the Midwest is the nation’s epicenter of cross-country skiing, sporting a history as replete with athleticism and competitive spirit as it is steeped in old-world lore and cold-world practicality. This history unfolds in full for the first time in Winter’s Children.”
This work was formally reviewed by my quondam colleague Ben Theyerl at FasterSkier in 2022. Ben’s review begins, “At the intersection of outdoors and pursuits, the street signs read ‘myth’ and ‘heroes.’ And we, those who spend our time outside, are here to patiently listen.” You can read the rest of his thoughts here.
John Morton, A Medal of Honor: An Insider Unveils the Agony and the Ecstasy of the Olympic Dream (1998)
Per Goodreads:
“From his hometown in Vermont, to Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, to Native villages in Alaska, Matt Johnson pursues his dream of competing in the Olympics. After dirty tricks by unscrupulous competitors make him almost miss being named to the Olympic biathlon team, Matt is thrust into the glamorous world of international competition. Here he finds that there is a dark side to the international circuit as well; the demands of sponsors, national pride and individual pride, combined with the insatiable appetite of the news media create sometimes irresistable [sic] pressures on coaches, athletes and sports officials. Always in the background, hovering over everything is the specter of illegal doping.
“Experience the inner world of Olympic competition, with seven-time Olympic participant [Ed.: “participant” is doing a lot of work here: Morton was named to two Olympic teams as an athlete, starting one race in that time; he was at, apparently, five other Games as a coach or official; “Six-Time Winter Olympian” on the front cover of the first edition is a shall we say creative use of the term “Olympian”] John Morton’s A MEDAL OF HONOR. This powerful novel peers into the Olympic Games in northern Italy while telling a story of enormous courage, dedication and international intrigue. A MEDAL OF HONOR is about people driven to excel and win. It shows why athletes, coaches and administrators feel compelled to push the envelope, sometimes beyond ethical and moral limits.”
Per Bill McKibben, in Long Distance: “Of both the English-language cross-country skiing novels, I like John Morton’s Medal of Honor the very best.”
John Morton, Celebrate Winter: An Olympian’s Stories of a Life in Nordic Skiing (2021)
Per Amazon:
“Celebrate Winter is a collection of entertaining stories by Olympic biathlete and U.S. Ski Team member, John Morton, sharing insights and reflections of more than fifty-five years of competition and coaching.
“John Morton has attended ten Winter Olympic Games in various capacities: athlete, coach, team leader, chief of course and, most recently, enthusiastic fan of the U.S. Biathlon Team.”
Doug Edmonson, Norm Oakvik: The Inconspicuous Coach (2025)
Per Amazon:
“This is the story of Norman Oakvik, a selfless Norwegian American who took time off each winter to help young skiers become champions. Norm Oakvik gave of himself for over 50 years, but he never took credit for these champions. He was the Inconspicuous Coach.
“It is also the story of his fellow competitors and how they succeeded but also gave back to Nordic skiing. People like John Burton, Charlie Banks, Mike Marciniak, Norm Kragseth, Lars Kindem, and many others all gave of themselves. Some of them were high school coaches and some of them were just part of the small fraternity of Nordic skiers. Read about Minnesota state champions from every year of the wooden-ski era and learn about these competitors and their success.
“The book includes the history of Minnesota Nordic skiing from 1930s to 1980 and the state high school champions that became junior national, national champions and sometimes, Olympians, and the coaches that helped them become great.”
This work currently has one review on Amazon. In this review, by Doug Edmonson, Doug Edmonson gives Doug Edmonson’s book five stars. Doug Edmonson’s review is titled, “Readers will get a great book at a great price.” I respect the self-confidence.
Doug is a frequent poster in the Midwest Nordic Facebook group; you can find out more about the book there if you are curious.
See also
Here are two well-reviewed recent skiing books that I have not read, because they are not in English. If you read Norwegian and/or Swedish, you should probably read these. If you read Norwegian and/or Swedish, and also write well in English, be in touch, and I will pay you for an English-language review of these works for this website. info (at) nordicinsights.news.
Marit Bjørgen, Vinnerhjerte (2021)
Per her literary agent:
“A Winner’s Heart is Marit Bjørgen’s reflection on a life as a cross-country skier. Here we meet the ten-year-old girl who wonders if she can become the best in the world. We follow the young athlete who wins every sprint, until everything changes, and she considers whether she should retire. We gain a unique insight into the transformation that made her into an undisputed champion. And we get to know Marit Bjørgen as she is today. With openness and honesty, she talks about life on the national team, the joy of training, and the values upon which she has built her life. About the journey from being the youngest member to becoming the clear leader of the world’s best national team. What thoughts she has had along the way about what has been said and written about her. And what thoughts she has now, in retrospect, about the development of the sport, for both youth and adult athletes.
“A Winner’s Heart: The Marit Bjørgen Story is written by Ingerid Stenvold, award-winning journalist and news anchor on Dagsrevyen. With her background as a former member of the national team in cross-country skiing and as a sports reporter, she has a unique understanding of the sport — both as it is seen from the inside by the athlete, and from the outside by the public.”
Charlotte Kalla, Skam Den Som Ger Sig: En Självbiografi (2023)
Per, uh, an auto-translation of the Goodreads page:
“Charlotte Kalla is one of Sweden’s most beloved and successful athletes of all time. In her autobiography, she tells the story of her path to victory, but also of disappointments, setbacks and recurring self-doubt that will give a new image of Sweden’s popular skiing icon.
“In Shame on the One That Gives Up, Charlotte reveals previously unknown details about the days and hours surrounding the biggest moments of her career. You get to follow the build-up to the big championships, and find out what really happens when the TV cameras have been turned off and the journalists have gone home. In the book, she reveals the fear that her career would end with a scandal that could have ruined everything. A fear she has kept to herself until now.
“She tells of everything from teenage trouble in Pajala to what it’s like to be a big female star in a world where the business is run by men. And about how doping suspicions and the pursuit of kilos have always been a sensitive topic in her profession.
“Charlotte Kalla has always put on the Swedish national team jersey with pride. Singing the national anthem after a victory has been one of life’s greatest moments. At the same time, she has always carried a sense of rootlessness. In the book, she talks about what it was like to grow up as an ummikko, a Tornedalian who does not speak her minority language Meänkieli, and how it has affected her.
“It is as much a sports biography as it is a strong life story. The book provides an almost unique insight into what it is like to live as a successful elite athlete, and what it was like to break through overnight as an unknown twenty-year-old and become the property of the entire Swedish people. …
“Johan Esk, long-time sports columnist at Dagens Nyheter, is co-author of the book.”
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American skiing. We started with nothing and now we’re going to the Olympics. You can read more about our first three years here, and donate to the Olympics fund here. Thank you for consideration, and, especially, for reading.
I’ve read only Jessie’s book and loved it, inspiring! From there I learned about term `pain cave`, she described it so vividly, what it takes to enter the cave and be allowed to take its throne. The childhood parts were joyful, the Russian parts were hilarious: I grew up there, so of course it is curious to see how others see it. Enjoyed the whole book.
Argh, pity that Kalla’s book is Swedish.
Already marked a few books from the list for future read, thanks for the list!
I would also recommend Don’t Look Back by John Morton! It’s a really interesting look at Morton’s training for World Masters. I also liked Nordic Warrior?: A Midlife Crisis in Biathlon by Craig Wiggers. It takes place in Central New York, which is a region often overlooked in the Nordic world.
You won’t believe how old i am now…
A great list, and very happy that it included Cross Country Cat.