YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHO INTRODUCED SKIING TO SWITZERLAND

The story begins with three adventurers setting out on their journey in the violet darkness before dawn. Beneath a huge, pale moon and icy white stars, everywhere—everywhere—was snow. The village of Davos itself sat some five thousand feet up in the mountains, fast disappearing behind the travelers.

There were two brothers, natives of Davos named Branger, and a third, a foreigner named Arthur. It was because of him that they were making this historic attempt: to traverse the twelve treacherous miles across the Furka Pass to the village of Arosa… on skis. Never done before. No, sir, never done before. And it might have remained undone to this day, except for the rest of the story.

Arthur and Louise had the kind of happiness together that seemed unshakable, invincible. But then, Louise became seriously ill. Tuberculosis—the virulent type, sometimes called galloping consumption. The doctors they consulted rendered the same grim prognosis: Louise's condition would grow steadily worse, and within a few months at most, she would be dead.

Promptly, Arthur—a medical doctor himself—nonetheless indulged in what colleagues today call denial. Louise was not going to die, he said. What his wife needed, he decided, was fresh mountain air. So, the couple abandoned their new, big-city home. They packed up their belongings and their two small children, and they headed for the mountains.

When the family arrived in the snowy village of Davos in December of 1893, Arthur was concerned with one thing only: Louise's health. But as her condition quickly, dramatically, almost miraculously began to improve in the high, dry atmosphere, the good doctor, greatly relieved, began looking around him. And what amazed him was this little community's utter isolation.

There was another village only twelve miles away, for instance: the town of Arosa. And yet, such was the steep, snow-engulfed terrain between here and there that Arosa might as well have been on another planet.

And that is when Arthur, an expert skier, made up his mind to demonstrate for the local villagers how they might better visit their neighbors. Accompanied by the athletic Branger brothers, whom he had instructed in the use of Norwegian skis, Arthur glided out of Davos at 4:31 on a morning in late March, 1894.

Three hours later, the sun rose over the distant peaks, turning the night to gleaming white. Sometimes they shuffled sideways along the mountain face, where one careless move might send them plummeting a thousand feet. Other times, they soared down the valley slopes with the thin, brittle air singing in their ears.

Just past 11 o'clock, the townspeople of Arosa, searching the distance with binoculars, caught sight of the wayfarers skiing over the last precipice high above the fir tree forest. And as their incredible seven-hour expedition drew to a close, the villagers greeted them with cheers and back-slaps and "Well done!"

As for Arthur's death-sentenced wife, Louise, the change of environment—supplemented with mega-doses of love—kept her alive and thriving for a dozen years more.

But something else wonderful came from their therapeutic trip to the mountains. For the people of that region, once snowbound to their villages, were liberated by a daring sportsman named Arthur, who introduced their country to skis.

Do I mean to say that doctor-turned-writer Arthur—Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world's most famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes—that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced skiing to Switzerland?

That is precisely what I mean to say.

That is indeed… the rest of the story.