March 2, 2007 – Cal Conniff, former executive director of the National Ski Areas Association and operator of Mount Tom Ski Area in Holyoke, and historian E. John B. Allen have authored a delightful volume called “Skiing in Massachusetts,” chock full of memorabilia from the beginnings of this sport.

The book is full of wonderful posters and photos of ski areas and ski clubs in Massachusetts, primarily in the Berkshires, dating back to the early 1900s. Skiing has evolved from a rough-and-tumble sport, where skiers would earn each downhill run by slogging uphill. First rope tows, then chairlifts, then high-speed chairlifts changed that. Snowmaking and grooming have become an essential part of every resort. Skis, boots and bindings have changed radically.

“Skiing in Massachusetts” is a look backward across the century in which all those changes happened.

Central Mass skiers might wonder why there are not more photos and information on their region – particularly from Wachusett Mountain Ski Area, which saw the CCC cut the Balance Rock and Pine Hill Trails, among the Depession-era agency’s first trails in New England, and where a formal alpine area was started by Worcester County commissioners in the 1960s. The book has one poster on the early downhill area, and a cutline that notes it had the longest T-bar in New England, 3,800 feet.

Be that as it may, all journalists, historians and authors write what they know, and Conniff knows the Berkshires intimately. His nifty book reflects his knowledge of the industry, and should be enthusiastically read by devotees of the sport of skiing, in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

“Skiing in Massachusetts” is published by Arcadia Publishing, and sells for $19.99.

The Story of Modern Skiing presents John Fry’s personal view of the development of skiing in North America from the end of World War II to almost the present.

Fry, former editor-in-chief of SKI Magazine and founding editor of Snow Country, describes the rise and maturation of a sport that first lured people through personal challenge, then turned to sybaritic opulence.

To call this volume eclectic is an understatement.

Fry also helped develop NASTAR racing the Graduated Length Method of teaching people to ski.

In "Modern Skiing," Fry writes, "Especially in the period between 1950 and 1972, many of the sport's enduring innovations arrived. Metal and fiberglass skis, plastic boots, and lightweight poles opened the way for revolutionary advances in technique. Major international races came to be held in North America every winter. Starting with a 1955 base of only 78 ski areas , over the next ten years the United States and Canada gained 580 new resorts having chairlifts and T-bars. Giant base lodges presaged the arrival of pleasure domes, dramatically different from the dark, dank, low-ceilinged base huts of the 1950s. The construction of the interstate highway system and the arrival of jet passenger planes gave rapid access to better, bigger, more distant terrain. Visits to U.S. ski areas soared from four or five million per winter to almost forty million. Spending on travel, equipment, and clothing rose above one billion dollars annually."

Published by University Press of New England, 2006, 408 pages, 86 photographs, $27.95.

Snowshoe Routes: New England, by Diane Bair and Pamela Wright describes 72 snowshoe routes in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Hike ranges from "Most Difficult/Backcountry" – such as the 4.8-mile round-trip into Tuckerman Ravine, to "Easy" – such as the 2-mile round-trip into the Flume in Franconia Notch.

Monadnock is in there – "More Difficult" 4.2 mile R-T.

The routes include four in Central Massachusetts: in Douglas State Forest – "Easy" 4.5-mile R-T, Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge – "Easy" 1.9-mile R-T, Upton State Forest – "Easy" 3.3-mile R-T, and Wachusett Mountain State Reservation – "Moderate" 4-mile R-T.

Published by The Mountaineers Books, 2006, 240 pages, 90 photos, 70 maps, $16.95.

Snowshoe Routes Adirondacks and Catskills by Bill Ingersoll describes 65 snowshoe hikes, ranging in length and difficulty from short and easy to demanding. Published by The Mountaineers Books, 2006, 240 pages, 90 photos, 57 maps, $16.95.

The new Midstate Trail Guidebook is off the presses.

This 55-page guide describes the 92-mile-long Midstate Trail in sections suitable for day hiking, with topographic maps, directions to parking, and important tips such as, "Speed limits on this section of Route 140 are strictly enforced!"

The guide also features color photographs of panoramic views, wildflowers and members of the Midstate Trail Committee at work over the years.

Published by Midstate Trail Committee, 2006, $13.50.

Arctic Wings: Birds of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, edited by Stephen Brown of the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, is hot off the presses.

It is a 192-page celebration in words and pictures of the bird life of America’s greatest wilderness refuge, running from the Arctic Ocean in northeast Alaska south across the Brooks Range.

The book offers a foreword by Jimmy Carter, an introduction by David Allen Sibley, a dozen essays on the various birds and on the Arctic Refuge itself, and 200 photographs by six outstanding wildlife photographers including Mark Wilson of the Boston Globe.

The images capture the exceptional beauty of the refuge and show more clearly than words why it is worth preserving.

The words, however, also make the point.

In one essay, wildlife biologist Fran Mauer writes: "The undisturbed condition of the Arctic Refuge has allowed us to learn something of how the natural world works, how the ancient relationships between species and their environment have developed over eons of time …

"The original purpose for establishing the Arctic Refuge was to protect for all time this rich, diverse, wild place, where natural processes have continued unaltered by modern humans since the beginning of time. Or, as Olaus Murie once said, it is 'a little portion of our planet left alone.' The Arctic Refuge was to remain untouched, to be used as a scientific control that could help us to understand the changes brought elsewhere to Arctic Alaska at the hand of modern humans."

Whether that happens remains an open question, as year after year, Congress raises and rejects plans to open this great, sprawling, fragile wilderness to oil development.

To purchase book, check out The Mountaineers Books.

Yellowstone to Yukon: Freedom to Roam, A photographic journey by Florian Schulz.

The book contains 200 color images of the northern Rocky Mountains, and essays by David Suzuki, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Quammen, Ted Kerasote and others.

Published by The Mountaineers Books, 2005, 196 pages, $34.95.