American Birkbeiner Race

This weekend is the 40^th anniversary of the American Birkbeiner Race, the largest and most prestigious cross country ski marathon in North America. This year a record 10,000 skiers will be at the starting lines of the Birkebeiner, Kortelopet and Hakon races.  The ski marathon is patterned after the area’s long Norwegian heritage. Lise Lunge-Larsen’s book “The Race of the Birkebeiners” is a finely detailed illustrated book that recounts how the two Birkebiners saved an infant by skiing across the mountains in the dead of winter.  One of the best accounts of what the race means today is found in Walter Rhein’s “Beyond Birkie Fever”.