The father of athletic sports in Sweden is Lieutenant Colonel Victor Gustaf Balck, who holds a military position in the garrison at Stockholm.  He introduced lawn tennis, cricket, baseball and football, and has established numerous athletic clubs in different parts of the country.  Sailing is popular, there being many yacht clubs with good houses and fleets.  And swimming is a part of the national education, nearly every man, woman, and child in Sweden taking naturally to the water and being able to swim.  Everybody can skate as well as swim.  In the cities rinks can be found with music and many conveniences.  In Stockholm there is a general skating club, with a rink large enough to accommodate six thousand skaters, and popular fetes given there at intervals during the winter are attended by the royal family and members of the court, and are regarded as important social functions.  All skating is done upon the numerous lakes, and often during the long nights of the winter hundreds of people, young and old, will gather at an early hour—­it gets dark at four o’clock in the afternoon—­and spend the entire night skating by moonlight.  A big fire is built in some convenient place for the crowd, and smaller fires by individual parties, who bring luncheon with them and have a picnic in the snow in the winter.  In various parts of the country, national and international skating contests are held, and winners in local tournaments, both for speed and fancy skating, are sent to Stockholm to contest for the grand prizes against the crack skaters of Norway, Denmark, Russia, and northern Germany.

But the national winter sport of all Scandinavia is skeeing—­skimming over the snow on snow-shoes.  There is no more vigorous or exciting exercise.  In the country districts men and women alike are educated to the use of snowshoes from childhood.  As soon as boys and girls are old enough to skate, they put on skees of a size appropriate to their stature, and are quite as agile and daring as their elders.  It requires nerve, skill, and muscular strength to skee, and a person who has never tried snow-shoes always finds it difficult to use them.  It is a sport to which people must be trained from childhood.  A skilful “skeer” can make a mile in two minutes.

Ice yachting and sailing on skates are two of the oldest and most popular national sports, and are practiced in both Sweden and Norway by all classes.  All the ice yachts and snow-shoes are home-made, and in the country districts many of the skates.[p]

CHAPTER XVII

THE NEWSPAPERS OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN