A bit different and maybe a bit more difficult subject this time.

Usually we like to keep things strictly non-political here. Snowsports and hobbies in general mostly unite people, not separate them like many other, perhaps more serious, things in this world.

Anyway, big mountain rider Jarkko Henttonen mailed us and asked to promote his friend, Sasha Huber, a bit. We couldn’t reject this – as the cause is so damn important in this case: the fight against racism.

Sasha lives in Helsinki, Finland, is originally from Zurich (half Swiss, half Haitian) and is an artist who also snowboards recreationally. She also has a very meaninful project against racism. Well, what does this all have to do with snow and mountains, you might ask? Hold on and I will tell you. To quote Sasha’s site:

“On 28th May 2007 was commemorated the 200th birthday of the Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), both in Switzerland and worldwide. However, Agassiz was not only an influential glaciologist, but also an influential racist and a pioneering thinker of apartheid. To make this fact known, the campaign “De-mounting Louis Agassiz” has been launched, suggesting to take his mountain away from Agassiz (thus “de-mount-ing” him) and henceforth to call the Agassizhorn (3946 metres above sea-level) on the boundary between the cantons of Wallis and Berne, named after him in the 1840ies, “Rentyhorn”. Renty was a slave from the Congo on a South Carolina plantation, whose daguerrotype picture was commissioned by Louis Agassiz in order to “scientifically prove the inferiority of the black race“.

Louis Agassiz

So, on Sasha’s site you can sign a petition that demands the renaming of the Agassizhorn. The new name of the peak would be “Rentyhorn”. The petition is aimed at all the Swiss authorities and also at the executive board of UNESCO’s world natural heritage area “Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn“

I signed the petition immediately after reading Sasha’s site. You can sign it too if you want to on Sasha’s site: Rentyhorn Petition

Rentyhorn, photo by Siro Micheroli

Ps. Thanks to Sasha for sending us the very beautiful photos by Siro Micheroli. Siro worked for 4 years as a freelance sports photographer shooting for Transworld Snowboarding, Lodown, Monster Backside RAD… So, we got another world-class photographer’s pics to our site. (Check out the earlier post: pictures of big mountain rider Jarkko Henttonen by professional photographer Petri Kovalainen).