Forums at The Military Horse

Imperial Russian soldier mounted on a reindeer.

Hey, you couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.

(As a total aside, I saw a documentary the other night about them carving a mammoth out of the ice in Siberia. It shows a Siberian native family moving a large erected tent over the tundra with reindeer. The mater familius was mounted, in once scene, on a reindeer. It was, frankly, amazing.

Pat

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 130eb9c274

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 4d7b6dd999

Finland, 1940.

Check out the elf shoes these guys are wearing. What is the purpose of those turned up toes?

Reminds me of the story of the "Die große Schlittenfahrt "(Great Sleigh Drive) which was a daring and bold maneuver by Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, to drive Swedish forces out of the Duchy of Prussia, a territory of his which had been invaded by the Swedes during the winter of 1678.

Of course, it was most likely that horses were used for that.

Couvi wrote:Check out the elf shoes these guys are wearing. What is the purpose of those turned up toes?

That type of footgear was still in common use by Laps at that time, which makes me wonder if we're seeing some Laplanders, or if that sort of winter footgear was adopted by other Finns. Why they're turned up I don't know.

The shoes were turned up to fit under a leather loop attached to the wooden skis, a way fairly sufficent for cross country skiing.
The Laps, they call themselves Sami, used only one stick for skiing, the same way it was used in the early days of skiing in the Alps.

Tom

Tom Muller wrote:The shoes were turned up to fit under a leather loop attached to the wooden skis, a way fairly sufficent for cross country skiing.
The Laps, they call themselves Sami, used only one stick for skiing, the same way it was used in the early days of skiing in the Alps.

Tom

Thanks, I was wondering that too.

That sort of describes, I think, the old fashioned style of Telemarking. A few folks here use Telemark skiis (I do, very badly) for cross country skiis as they're truly cross country. When people talk about "Nordic" skiing here they usually mean skiis on tracks, but Telemarking skis let you ski anywhere.

I should note, however, that I don't try downhill skiing on my Telemarking skis. I don't try downhill at all.

Grüß Gott Renntierkameraden,

The WWII Gebirgsjägers also adopted the use of Reindeer during the campaigns in Finland.








The primary transport being the Finnish Akja, pull sled.

Pat Holscher wrote:I should note, however, that I don't try downhill skiing on my Telemarking skis. I don't try downhill at all.

Ski Heil! I love skiing downhill on my Telemark skis!!! Snowmass, CO in Feb'08:

The archtypical Finnish ski soldier.

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 0b9bbd1c13

Note the boots fitting into the bindings, as Tom noted (Pat K.'s are three pin, I think, bindings which were the "Nordic Norm").

Pat Holscher wrote:The archtypical Finnish ski soldier.

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 0b9bbd1c13

Note the boots fitting into the bindings, as Tom noted (Pat K.'s are three pin, I think, bindings which were the "Nordic Norm").

Hey Pat...great Finnish ski soldier photos!! I'm actually skiing on modern cable bindings...like the old Kandahar type. Here's what the Gebirgsjägers used:

Cross-Country mode:



Downhill mode:



And Sitzmark mode




Hals und Beinbruck!

Back to Reindeer....a couple of more uses for the Reindeer:

Heeresbergführer wrote:

Pat Holscher wrote:The archtypical Finnish ski soldier.

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 0b9bbd1c13

Note the boots fitting into the bindings, as Tom noted (Pat K.'s are three pin, I think, bindings which were the "Nordic Norm").

Hey Pat...great Finnish ski soldier photos!! I'm actually skiing on modern cable bindings...like the old Kandahar type. Here's what the Gebirgsjägers used:

Cross-Country mode:

Interesting.

Let me note that I know next to nothing about skiing, in spite of owning telemarking skis (Fischer 99s). I came to them sort of by way of snowshoeing, as I snowshoed in the winter (and still do a bit), but all my friends got around in the woods much quicker with skiis. They had telemarking skiis, and so that's what I bought. They are a good true cross country skii. My Fischer 99s are still in good shape after all these years of use.

Cable bindings are something I am familiar with only because when I first learned to skii as a kid I used them. This is because I used my mother's old skiis, as I could fit her boots and whatnot. Her skis were wooden and dated back from the 40s or so. Anyway, they had cable bindings, and looked a lot like this. I broke my leg skiing as a result of the bindings, as they do not efficiently release. That experience caused me to give up skiing for about a decade, and I've only gone back to it for cross country skiing. In the mountains, you have to cross country skii or snowshoe in some conditions.

I didn't know they called these kandahar bindings. In looking that up, I ran across this site which depicts a single pole skiier, as Tom mentions.

http://www.backcountryfriends.com/backc ... arsky.html

Great article....here's some cool video of old style Telemark skiing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1HNYn5gvOY

Heeresbergführer wrote:
Hey Pat...great Finnish ski soldier photos!! I'm actually skiing on modern cable bindings...like the old Kandahar type. Here's what the Gebirgsjägers used:

Cross-Country mode:

As a total aside, at least in the 80s the U.S. Army's Rangers were issued a boot that featured the grooves for cable bindings. They were pretty nice boots, by my observation (I can only recall seeing them a couple of times) and were very heavily constructed. Sort of a cross between logging boots and telemarking boots. Does anyone know if they still use those?

Also, I ran across an item detailing authorized uniforms for the 10th Mountain Division very late in WWII. It notes the M43 combat boot and the field boot as authorized, but then goes on to note the "M44 high lace boot" as also authorized, but for "stateside use only".

What was the M44 boot?

On this thread, it's interesting to note that the author of The Rode Into Europe theorizes that human beings rode reindeer before they rode horses. At least in that book, he feels reindeer to have been the probable earliest animal to be used in that fashion. Steppe people, he feels, adopted riding horses for the same reasons their northern neighbors did, after observing them ride reindeer, that being that it was easier to herd an animal used for food if you rode one of the same animals.

Bumped up due to related thread on sleds.

Animal Transportation for Field Artillery

I found this while looking for data on dog sleds, and there is a bit on reindeer.

Note the information on the “zembourek,” a small cannon mounted on a camel.

Also, note the use of goats and sheep as draft animals. I had heard of goats being used, but never sheep. Is this common?

http://sill-www.army.mil/famag/1925/MAY ... 71_286.pdf