The American Birkebeiner is a cross country skier’s dream. The annual event where Sawyer and Bayfield counties converge also means a lot to the local economy. Last month, organizers pulled off the 50th Birkie despite all odds.
As the Birkeibeiner was picking up steam last month. I met Pewaukee resident Nick Reardon and his young family in the small town of Cable. They were sipping and snacking outside Velo Cafe. Reardon was about to ski his very first Birkie.
“My brother-in-law has done it a couple times. He taught me how to ski last year, so I’m going to do the Berkie this year,” Reardon says.
The Birkie attracts Olympic medalists, serious amateurs and everyone in between. This year nearly 12,000 people participated — undaunted by Wisconsin’s warmest winter on record.
Inside, cafe owners Daryl and Krista Christenson were busy serving up breakfast sandwiches and lattes. Krista still managed to squeeze in a ski between shifts.
“It was actually pretty amazing to be skiing in the middle of the golf course surrounded by brown field, but to be able to do something this year,” she says.
The traditional Birkie course starts just outside Cable. Fifty arduous kilometers later, skiers land in downtown Hayward.
This snowless year, organizers manufactured and stockpiled their own snow at the Birkebeiner trailhead. Dump truck after dump truck ferried the snow to create a 10-kilometer ribbon southeast of Cable around which skiers could loop and reloop.
While Christenson’s café was humming, so were the eateries in Hayward — 20 miles from the Berkie course.
The Angry Minnow Brew Pub was packed with hungry people — lots in ski garb. Server April could only take time to say business is as brisk as last year.
On Main Street, customers checked out merchandise at Outdoor Ventures. In normal Berkie days, skiers cruised toward the finish line right outside the store’s window. Spectators would squeeze along sidewalks to drink in the excitement.
Employee Erin McDade says although she saw fewer people in town this year, the store was getting more traffic.
“Because Main Street isn’t so busy. So people don’t have to walk a mile with shopping bags back to their car. People can more freely come in and shop,” McDade says.
Back along the Birkie course, world class skiers were about to take to the snow.
Linda Hobbs clutched a collection of goat and sleigh bells in one hand, a drumstick in the other. The Powerline Drummers have cheered on Birkie skiers for decades.
Hobbs knows the power of the beat. She skied 31 Birkies. “It was always such a thrill to come up the last big hill, the last big uphill at the powerline. The drums give you such a rhythm to get up that big hill. It was inspiring to me to come back and do the same for the other skiers,” Hobbs says.
Birgitta Wiik Lindgren traveled from Colorado to savor the moment. Her memories stretch back to the Berkie’s beginnings. Her father Sven Wiik designed its original course.
“He was an Olympic ski coach and so he had laid out many trails, and so they came up with the Birkebeiner idea to represent America and that’s how it all started. So dad laid out the very first trail that was used for quite some time,” Wiik Lindgren says.
Eventually a more challenging course replaced her dad’s.
Wiik Lindgren says this year’s loop created to accommodate to no snow conditions would make her father smile. Her dad wanted people of all abilities to enjoy the Birkie experience. “My dad was interested in the masses. Nice and gentle for everyone and everyone having such a good time,” Wiik Lindgren says.
You could feel the power of the Berkie legacy as spectators and athletes converged for the awards ceremony. In the background waves of skiers were still taking their turn at the course.
Kids decked out head to toe in Birkie gear flanked the stage, holding flags of the many countries participating this year.
Ernie St. Germaine was honored this year and has come to represent the Berkie. His mother of the La Courte Oreilles people, his father Lac du Flambeau, St. Germaine has skied every Birkie. This time his grandson was at his side. St. Germaine says he felt like he was traveling through history.
“Comparing this week to the first one ... I didn’t know what I was getting into [then] and we followed a snowmobile track from Hayward to here. So it went from 35 of us; people like me who hadn’t skied before and here I am 50 Birkebeiners later loving skiing because of the Birkebeiner,” St. Germaine says.
St. Germaine has his eye on the future. “My grandson got to ski with me with me and he’s the future. And I see all these little kids that were here and their excitement and what an inspiration to have the world’s best here skiing,” he reflects.
The American Birkebeiner Foundation stated “We can’t wait to celebrate the 51st Birkebeiner in 2025.” What’s not clear is what shape the Birkie will take as Wisconsin winters are expected to keep warming.
