Apart from using a short ski for ‘kicking’ and a longer one for ‘gliding’ early skiers only used one pole, the concept of using two poles, or sticks, only becoming popular in the late 1800’s, a cross country race at Huseby in Norway in 1888 being one of the first times they were used competitively, though Finnish woodsmen had been using them for a while before that. At the start of the 20th century, ski sticks were pretty much home made affairs cut from hazel or ash and early ski club journals ran articles on how to make your own. Later there were imports of bamboo from French Indo China which, being lighter, stronger and more flexible, were more suited to the task. Folk still made their own, but as the sport of skiing developed manufacturers saw a market and started producing sticks ‘en masse’ whilst extolling the various virtues of their own products compared to others. Bamboo gave way to aluminium, plastic, glass fibre, alloy and ultimately carbon fibre. Whilst not going quite that far, we do have an excellent range of sticks in our collection most of which seem to have had an interesting life. This is a fabulous old pair of sticks made from thicker bamboo than usual and with what we assume is the natural joint or knot at the top. The wrist loops are rather thin, not very comfy, leather, whereas the baskets are a sumptuous affair of leather and cane. These are either, very well home made versions or up market bought ones which we’ll hazard a guess at dating from the 1930’s.