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Outdoor Skills

Traditional Finnish Ski Poles: Craft Your Own Set

Course Overview

Enhance your winter adventures with these lightweight, durable ski poles which are based on the types used by northern Minnesota Finnish immigrants for winter travel. The poles are constructed with birch shafts, copper rivets, whitetail-tanned buckskin grips, and moose rawhide and bent birch baskets. You will make your custom-sized ski poles using age-old techniques passed from Finnish ski maker Marvin Salo (whose father was a master ski maker trained in the old Saami school of ski construction), to long-time instructor emeritus Mark Hansen and now to your instructor Ian Andrus, who has completed a multi-year apprenticeship with Mark. This course is a great complement to the Traditional Birch Ski Making course.

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