John Albert Thompson, nicknamed “Snowshoe Thompson”, is best known for delivering mail across the Sierra Nevada mountains from Placerville, California to Genoa, Nevada. Animals and vehicles could not make the journey through the deep snow in the winter. Despite doing this difficult and potentially dangerous work for twenty years (1856-1876) he was never paid for the job.

To make the eastbound trip in just three days, Thompson actually used long skis (10 foot) and a single sturdy pole (tools and techniques from his native Norway) rather than the broad short snowshoes that we know today. The return westbound trip had more downhill and only took him 2 days.

Impressively, Thompson did not bring along a blanket or a gun on his cross-mountain trips and he claims that he was never lost (even in a blizzard).

For being the first skiier and showing other people how to make and use skiis, Thompson is known as the father of skiing in California.

Performing the service for so long, I suppose he must have enjoyed the solitude and cool winter landscape. I wonder what he thought about on those long solo journeys. Did he ever get bored or mischievous enough to read the mail he carried?

Further reading: “The Story of Snowshoe Thompson” (on wordpress.com) by Barbara W. Beacham goes into detail about the route Thompson took, the weight of the mail Thompson carried, the skis, and also has a few good photos.

Notes:

• Snowshoe Thompson is one of my California Curiosities – interesting random bits of California history.
• I first read about Snowshoe Thompson in a geology book, oddly enough. I was reading about rocks I’d seen while Hiking the High Sierras. The section of the book on early California history (early from the perspective of Americans of European descent, not from the perspective of Native Americans or rocks [geologic time] – mind you), was quite helpful. My thanks to Mary Hill and her book “Geology of the Sierra Nevada” (2006) for introducing me to Thompson’s story.