A group of outdoor-loving history buffs in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, has revived the first skiing technique brought to Japan more than a century ago by an Austro-Hungarian Army officer.

Established nearly 50 years ago, "Lerch no Kai" (the Society of Lerch) is named after Maj. Theodor Edler von Lerch, who is said to have demonstrated a full-scale skiing technique in Japan for the first time in 1911.

Lerch was assigned to the country a year earlier to analyze the Imperial Japanese Army following its victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.