Hemingway and Skiing with John Lundin
The Community LibraryHistorian and author John W. Lundin will explore Ernest Hemingway’s relationship to skiing, from the Alps to Idaho, and how skiing was an important part of the writer's life, key to his coming of age, and provided themes he incorporated into his later writings. Hemingway developed his love for skiing in the Alps during the 1920s while dealing with gruesome injuries suffered during World War I and living as an expatriate in Paris as a member of the “lost generation.” Between 1922 to 1926, he spent winters in the Alps, perfecting his craft and writing his first works, and skiing in the afternoons with his first wife Hadley Richardson. Hemingway threw himself into skiing, excited by the physically demanding nature of the sport in the 1920s, the challenge of climbing mountains using skins, and racing down glaciers in untracked snow, experiencing avalanches and crevasses, perhaps as a way of dealing with troubled memories of his traumatic war years. His association with Sun Valley, Idaho, began in 1939 when he accepted an invitation to stay at the resort compliments of Union Pacific in exchange for its right to use his image for publicity. He fell in love with the area, returning ...
