Sam Ouellette

In the 1930s three-day cross-country ski races covering over 100 miles were popular in Maine. One of the best racers was Sam Ouellette from Milo, Maine. Sam competed in many races and won the 102 mile 1935 Fort Fairfield marathon, the 171 mile 1937 Bangor to Caribou marathon and the 137 mile 1939 Rivere de Loup to Fort Fairfield marathon.
Many of the skiers Ouellet raced against were Scandinavian and had grown up skiing. Born a French Canadian and working in the lumber industry Ouellet had only skied for a few years; he said that he took up the sport to provide his children, "an athletic example".

Racecourses in the 1930s were not what we are used to today. There was no course preparation; in fact they raced on the roads, which were being used by cars at the same time. For the 1937 Bangor to Caribou race the headline in the Aroostook Republican read, "Ouellet is Winner in Ski Marathon - Under Almost Impossible Conditions" .

The day before the race was to begin the planned route had almost no snow on the road. A change of course was made to a road that according to the Aroostook Republican, "held some snow". The paper went on to describe the conditions, "A heavy wet snow was so blinding that a State Police vehicle followed each skier to afford him protection from cars coming from behind." Unfortunately the snow still did not fully cover the roads and the racers still encountered long sections of bare ground over the three days of racing. At one point the road crews even sanded the roads ahead of the skiers. Through all this Sam Ouellette built a solid lead and 21 minutes ahead of his closest competitor was escorted into Caribou and across the finish line by dozens of cars.

The Aroostook Republican wrote, "Only those who followed Ouellet through his long journey and witnessed the hardships and adverse conditions on which he labored can have any idea of the nerve and sheer determination it took to finish this race."
That was not Sam's only difficult race. On the first day of the 1939 Rivere de Loup he and one other racer took turns breaking trail through 18" of new snow. The other skiers caught up with them but would not help break trail. A snowmobile, a car with skis on the front instead of wheels, was unable to follow the racers due to the deep snow. Sam ended that day with a sprint to win by seconds. The Aroostook Republican describes the final day of racing, "Under sunny skies a crowd of 8,000 thrilled to competitive ski racing. Plodding tirelessly through the center of town, thronged with a solid mass of spectators the diminutive Sam Ouellette slid across the finish line."

Proving himself to be more than just a remarkable skier Sam Ouellet competed in countless bicycle races and between 1928 and 1968 ran the Boston Marathon 35 times