Last man racing: In quest to 50 Birkebeiners, man, 74, represents those who stood with him

It was one week before the inaugural American Birkebeiner in 1973, and Ernie St. Germaine didn’t know how to cross-country ski.

“I had never seen it before, to be honest,” he said.

He was with a friend of his grandfather’s, 72-year-old Lyman Williamson, who couldn’t get the words out of his mouth before his wife said there was no way Williamson could ski that race at that age. It was non-negotiable.

“He looked at me, grinning,” St. Germaine remembered. “‘My boy, you’re going to have to represent me.’”

So, he had some learning to do. St. Germaine put on the boots and clicked into the bindings to practice in Williamson’s driveway. His immediate goal was to make it to the mailbox. He started that way, but Williamson quickly caught him breaking rule No. 1.

“Oh, he yelled at me,” St. Germaine said. “‘No, no you damn fool! No skating. Never, never skate. This is Nordic — you glide. Glide.’ And so, I started gliding.”

St. Germaine skied the following week, and every year they held a Birkebeiner for the next 50 years up north around Hayward. He skis representing Williamson’s guidance and all the good memories the two shared.

He represents Tony Wise, the man who tapped into his Norwegian heritage in starting the Birkebeiner, which, along with his other efforts, “put Hayward on the map.”

He represents Dave Landgraf, a dear friend and fellow founder — they were two of the 11 skiers to participate in the first 10 Birkebeiners.

He represents his grandparents, who raised him as part of the Lac du Flambeau Band of the Ojibwe, as reported earlier this year in Cross Country Skier, a Nordic skiing journal.

He represents them all in spirit, as none of them are still alive today. St. Germaine — at age 74 — is the only person to have participated in each one of the Birkebeiners over the last 50 years.

“There are moments that would really tear at your heart strings,” he said. “The race after Tony passed. The race after Lyman passed. Things like that. My grandparents. Just remembering them. I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t done what they did to help me become who I am.”

‘Let’s do 50’

St. Germaine and Landgraf grew up together. They went to school together. They competed in sports together. They went to college and raced in the first American Birkebeiner together.

One year when a reporter was interviewing them together, they kept goofing around. Finally, she asked them how long they planned on racing together?

“Dave looked at me and said, ‘Let’s do 50 and see how we feel,’” St. Germaine remembered. “We had done about 35 at the time. I said, ‘Sure. Why not?’”

Landgraf was a tremendous athlete. He loved riding his bike and training. But one day in 2011 while he rode his bike, St. Germaine said a driver who was texting struck Landgraf and killed him.

“Just a waste of a beautiful life,” he said. “Just gone.”

St. Germaine could never get his friend’s answer out of his head: Let’s do 50 and see how we’re feeling. That doesn’t mean 50 is the end. He’s done 48 so far — two years saw their races canceled — and race No. 48 felt pretty good.

His friends and family have made him who he is today. He said he owes them. They all taught him so much, but they never taught him to quit.

Perhaps he’s tapping into the history of the Birkebeiner, when two warrior soldiers in 1206 skied a baby prince 55 kilometers to safety during the Norwegian civil war. There are races where he’s been sick, others where he’s been injured. No matter what, he said he never considered skipping a race. It doesn’t enter his mind.

“No coach. No trainer,” he said. “Nobody ever taught me how to quit. So, it’s just not in me.”

A way of life

The Birkebeiners, he said, have given him a way of life — meaning every day, he’s taking care of himself, treating people right and keeping physically fit. He rides his bike, anything to be outside and take in the fresh air. The day after one year’s race, he’s already thinking about the next.

He’s thinking about more than the next race, though. He’s also mindful of the next generation. He considers it his responsibility to also include the duties of role model.

St. Germaine said on WPR’s “Central Time” that he was with his grandson Benjamin, who earlier this year skied the Barnebirkie, the youth equivalent of the race. It’s listed as non-competitive, which is fine as far as St. Germaine is concerned.

“If he becomes a good racer, fine,” he said. “If he’s just content with loving (skiing) the way I do, oh my gosh, I couldn’t ask for anything more. My goal isn’t to (have) him standing on the victory stand in first place. I just hope he loved it the way I do.”

Nothing makes Benjamin’s grandparents prouder than when they hear his teachers talk about him. Benjamin’s mom, St. Germaine’s daughter, came back from a recent parent-teacher conference in tears. Benjamin, now in third grade, “is at the top,” according to his teacher.

St. Germaine has two sons and a daughter, and he has four grandkids in total. But he wants to be a role model beyond his own family.

The first Birkebeiner included 35 participants — 34 men and one woman. But St. Germaine said this was before the Federation of International Skiing allowed women to compete. So, that one woman, Jackie Lindskoog, had to register for the race as a man.

St. Germaine said he told Wise, the event’s founder, to make sure Lindskoog was included in the list of founders. She was there. She raced. She deserved it.

He wants to the next generation to remember Wise, Lindskoog and Williamson. He wants everyone to remember Landgraf and his grandparents. So long as he’s alive, St. Germaine wants their memories alive with him.

Nowadays, most skiers skate the races. It’s faster, he said. But that’s not how St. Germaine was taught.

“People have always asked me: ‘Do you skate?’ And I say ‘never,’” he explained. “They say, ‘Why not?’ Because the very first time I put on Nordic skis, I got yelled at by an old Norwegian for skating. And I have never skated since. I always glide, glide, glide.”