Telemark is the original turning style of modern skiing, invented in the Telemark region of southern Norway in the 1860s by Sondre Norheim. The technique uses a free-heel binding (the heel is not locked to the ski) and a distinctive deep knee-bend lunge with one ski advanced - the lead leg pushes the ski into the turn while the trailing leg drops into a deep flexion. The form is elegant, athletic, and substantially more demanding than the modern alpine parallel turn that eventually replaced it on commercial slopes.
Sondre Norheim's contribution to skiing in the 1860s and 1870s - the side-cut ski, the heel binding system that allowed a controlled turn, the public demonstrations that introduced the technique to the wider Norwegian and European skiing public - is genuinely revolutionary in the history of the sport. The whole modern world tradition of recreational skiing descends, by direct lineage, from his Telemark workshop. The Norwegian Ski Museum in Oslo and the smaller Norheim museum at Morgedal in Telemark cover the history seriously.
Telemark as a technique survived the rise of alpine parallel-turn skiing as a niche pursuit through most of the twentieth century, then experienced a serious revival in the 1990s and 2000s as part of the wider backcountry and tele-touring movement. Modern telemark uses much-improved boots and bindings (the New Telemark Norm, NTN, and the older 75mm three-pin), and is still the right technique for mixed-condition descent on traditional fjellski equipment in non-technical Norwegian mountain terrain.
For the international visitor, telemark is partly a historical reference - when you ski-tour through the Norwegian mountains, you are using equipment and technique descended directly from a small workshop in Telemark in the 1860s - and partly a still-living technique you might see in use, particularly among older Norwegian ski-tourers and at small dedicated telemark events. A Telemark-region trip can include a visit to Morgedal as a serious cultural stop. The wider Telemark region is also home to the largest concentration of surviving stavkirker (medieval stave churches) in the country.