Traction

Skis are slippery on the bottom, which is great when you want to ski down a hill. But how do you get up a hill if you don’t have a ski-lift?

This is where skinning comes in.

Skinning is an old indigenous practice of affixing seal skins to the bottom of skis. If the sealskin is attached so that the grain of seal hair faces in the right direction on the bottom of the ski, it creates traction and you can slide your skis up a hill.

If you’re just starting out, you may feel like you’re not getting anywhere, and that can be frustrating. Just remember the beauty of traction is that once you have it, your entire journey becomes possible.