Lake Telemark: Cradle of XC in North Jersey?
Thanks to the Rockaway Township Public Library for their assistance
"Don't make this about me." Roy Selland must have told me that 3 times during our first conversation for this article. He's been skiing for over 50 years, making the grinding trips north to race before I even knew what cross country skiing was. He hepped the Flatland Posse to our favorite roller ski spot, Lake Denmark Road. I started out intending to relay some of his war stories, but he emphasized that there was a whole community of people into skiing and ski jumping back in the old days.
Lake Telemark. Stockholm. Oslo Hill. Swede Mine Road. Years before the current trend of giving every new subdivision a cute moniker like "Fawn Glen," a name conveyed information about the place it was attached to. Lake Telemark, situated in northern Morris County, was founded in 1929 by 2 Norwegian emigrés who were reminded of home by the small lakes and tall fir trees. In the beginning, it was a resort community for the Scandinavian community in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Little by little, people turned their summer cottages into year-round houses. Local newspaper articles referred to the area as "Little Norway."
A newspaper article dated Feb 10, 1947, documents the first annual Winter Carnival sponsored by the Sons of Norway chapter in Telemark. Ice skaters and "ski enthusiasts" came from around north Jersey, New York and Brooklyn, and 1000 spectators watched "national speed and figure skaters and thronged nearby ski slopes to watch jumping and cross country runs."
Arvid Hagen of New York broke his arm after a "35-foot leap" off the 10 foot jump. (Might the journalist have confused feet with meters?) Erling Sveningsen of Staten Island, a "former Eastern States cross country ski champion," won the jumping event. He then went on to win a 6-mile cross country race with a "field of 14 leading Norwegian experts." Svengingsen's son Rolf placed second.
A second article by the same writer, John W. Rae, dated Dec 14, 1947, relays plans for the second Winter Carnival: "National ski and skating champions are scheduled to participate in next year's event February 1 when a new 1000 foot ski slope and jump will be dedicated."
Roy was a quarter mile runner in high school in Lake Telemark in 1948 when "snoballen," a group of Norwegian "Olympic caliber ski jumpers" came to the U.S. They put on an exhibition at Lake Telemark's Winter Carnival before setting out to compete at tournaments all around the northeast.
I'm not clear on what happened first: the formation of the Odin Ski Club or the construction of the 25-meter ski jump on the hill overlooking Green Pond Road. A program for the Odin Ski Club's "Spring Ski Jumping Festival" (June 1! 8 P.M.! Under floodlights! Sunday June 2 starting at 2 P.M.! No year specified, but I would guess 1958 or 1959) gives a brief history: One Erling Flogland found the site for the 25-meter jump on top of Hibernia Mountain. "Then Sverre Justnes bought the area and brought his 20 Musketeers to clean up the brush." A bulldozer did the heavy clearing for them.
"Basically, there was nothing but a chute," Roy said. They built a frame with 2x6's and fashioned an outrun; then they jumped. While the winter of 1948 had plenty of snow, the succeeding "typical Jersey winters" didn't stop the Odin Ski Club. If nature didn't co-operate, diehard club members would harvest snow around Rockaway Township, schlep it up to the ski jump in pickup trucks and spread it, and then get rolling.
It may not have been the biggest jumping hill, but the Odin Ski Club had a good program. Throughout the 1950's the ski jumps were open from Christmas until March. Several good ski jumpers came out of Lake Telemark. Roy named a few names for me:
- Arthur Tokle, who competed at the 1952 and 1960 Winter Olympics.
- Andy Crawl, who competed on the U. of Denver ski jumping squad.
- Johnny Holt, who was a regular on the eastern ski jump circuit.
- Jackie Hosick, a fine Class A/B jumper. (In those days, "Class A" denoted an elite skier, "B" was just below, followed by "C")
- Oddvar Ask, an excellent jumper who qualified for the 1960 Olympic team but didn't get his U.S. citizenship in time.
- Birger Visgnes, who came to Lake Telemark from Norway in 1948. He skied cross country and jumped as a student at St. Lawrence, and continues to ski today.
- Roy went to the U. of Maine and skiied from 1952-1955, competing in jumping, cross country and the occasional alpine event.
Most of the stories in the sports section of the now defunct Dover Advance covered the local high school teams or bowling. I did find a few articles spanning the winter of 1960...the February 1, 1960 issue of the Dover Advance named 37-year- old Art Tokle January "Sports Star of the Month" after he made the Olympic team.
In addition, there were many other local people involved, among them Norman Jacobsen, Kjell Skavnes, and Walter Swanson.
At Christmas, many of the Lake Telemark jumpers would travel up to Lake Placid,where a 40-meter hill reposed on the site of the modern jumps used in 1980. In lean years, they shovelled snow for 2 days and jumped for 4 days before returning home.
"You could go every weekend" to a different jumping meet, Roy told me. "Jumping was the thing. It wasn't cross country." They competed at Bear Mountain, NY; Salisbury, CT; Lake Placid, and Brattleboro, VT.
The jump at Lake Telemark is gone, but inrun at Bear Mountain survives.
It's hard to conceive now, but ski jumping drew big crowds 40+ years ago. On January 16, 1960, over 10,000 spectators turned out to watch the competition for the Doerr Memorial Cup at Bear Mountain, NY. Lee Todd, then a USSA nordic competition director, recalled watching Art Tokle jump in front of a similar crowd in Brattleboro, VT. A jumping contest in New York city's Central Park, in November of that year, took place on crushed ice and drew 20,000. (With the temperature at 62Fahrenheit, you would hope everyone got their turn in quickly.)
This is the end of Part 1. Stay tuned for Part 2,coming soon.