cross-country skiing ephemera
Minnesota History Magazine
Curator’s Choice Article
Winter 2019/2020 edition
Cross-Country Skiing Ephemera
Minnesota’s cross-country ski trails are popular winter destinations for many. The snowpacked trails have produced skiers who rank among the world’s finest, including Jessie Diggins, a 28- year- old 2018 Olympic cross-country gold medalist from Afton, Minnesota. The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) is documenting Diggins’s career through recently acquired photographs, race bibs, and other ephemera. Diggins began skiing at age three after her father took an interest in the sport and eventually got the whole family involved. Years of training led Diggins to qualify for the International Ski Federation (F.d.ration Internationale de Ski, or FIS) World Cup for the first time in 2011. Since then, Diggins has won multiple individual and team medals in FIS World
Cup freestyle and classic races. On December 2, 2017, in Lillehammer, Norway, she achieved her goal to qualify for a final in a classic- style sprint race, wearing the bib at left during the qualifying round. Ultimately taking sixth place individually, Diggins performed well enough overall to qualify to compete in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, where she was part of the sprint freestyle team that won the gold medal. Orange “go Jessie go” cowbells like the one pictured were rung by friends, family, and supporters at a parade to welcome her home to Afton after the gold- medal win.
The 2018 Winter Olympics was not Diggins’s first, however. In 2014 she competed in Sochi, Russia, wearing the bib pictured at right. Racing in a five- kilometer freestyle relay, with Diggins on the final leg, her four- person team took eighth place— the best any American women’s team has placed to date. Minnesotans will have the opportunity to experience the FIS World Cup in March 2020, when it will be held at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis— the first time the event has been held in the United States since 2001. The four- day festival includes races for skiers of all skill levels and ages on the park’s iconic steep hills and sharp turns. If you have the chance, get out there and see some races, get on some skis, and remember: falling is learning.
— Gray Arel, former curatorial assistant intern at the Minnesota Historical Society and competitive skier