Tells how the infant Prince Hakon is rescued by men fiercely loyal to his dead father, who ski across the rugged mountains in blizzard conditions to save him from his enemies, the Baglers.

A mother s compulsion to protect her children is timeless and primal. War is insidious and ageless. Birkebeiner is a story of both. Two years after her son Hakon s birth, Inga is with her husband, King Hakon, in the besieged fortress of Lillehammer. The enemy, the Crozier army, is certain to overrun Lillehammer. Once the Croziers breach the walls, they will kill Inga s child, heir to the Norwegian throne and the prince who may unite the country. To save little Hakon, King Hakon asks his two best warriors to flee with his son for the safety of Nidaros (present-day Trondheim). It s a long and dangerous journey on skis through two treacherous winter valleys and over a 7,000-foot snow-blown mountain. Willing to risk everything for her son, Inga insists on going with them. For eight harrowing, exhausting days, they re pursued by a cadre of enemy soldiers bent on killing her child. Magnus, the Crozier s military leader whom the church and the bishop call King -- and who has lost his own wife and two-year-old son -- must lead the chase.

Each summer, men and women travel from all over the globe to the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wisconsin, to compete before thousands of spectators and prove who is the best at chopping and sawing wood, log rolling, and boom running. The event, with its impressive international fan base, has become the most prestigious timber sport gathering in the world. Timber! chronicles the history of the championships since its inception in 1960 and highlights such popular athletes as J.R. Salzman, Ron Hartill, and Peggy Halvorson, all of whom are stalwarts in a variety of events from the hot saw to the springboard chop. These glory-seeking competitors symbolize a connection to the old days of logging in Wisconsin and throughout the United States, when timber-felling helped build the country. Lively and informative, Timber! shows how these timber sports keep alive the spirit of the logging world and the image of the logger as a pioneer.

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. Nordic skiing first took hold as a sport in the Upper Midwest at the end of the nineteenth century, giving rise to an early ski league and a host of star athletes. With the arrival of a pair of brothers from Telemark, Norway, the world's best skiers at the time, the sport--and the ski manufacturing industry--reached new heights in Minnesota, only to see its fortunes fall after World War II, when downhill skiing surged in popularity. In Winter's Children Ryan Rodgers traces the rise and fall of Nordic skiing in the Midwest from its introduction in the late 1800s to its uncertain future in today's rapidly changing climate. Along the way he profiles the sport's stars and stalwarts, from working-class Norwegian immigrants with a near-spiritual reverence for cross-country skiing to Americans passionately committed to the virtues of competitive sport, and he chronicles races like the thrilling 1938 Arrowhead Derby (which ran from Duluth to St. Paul over five days) and the American Birkebeiner, the nation's largest cross-country event, which takes place every year in northern Wisconsin, snowpack permitting. Generously illustrated with vintage photography and ski posters, and featuring firsthand observations drawn from interviews, Winter's Children is an engaging look at the earliest ski teams and touring clubs; the evolution of cross-country skis, gear, and fashion; and the ambitious and ongoing effort to establish and maintain a vast trail network across the Minnesota state park system.

Updated for the first time in ten years, the "bible of Eastern backcountry skiing" returns with an all-new edition, fully revised to reflect the latest and greatest off-piste lines--as well as the trove of newly created and rehabilitated ski glades in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, New York, and Massachusetts.