Sleighing
WHEREVER ice can be obtained, sleighing is possible. Wherever there is an incline of snow, hand sleighs or sledges can be used. To make a serviceable horse sleigh, take off the wheels from a gig or phaeton and add two long ash shafts with the pointed end upwards thus:- The shafts may or may not be shod with iron, but it is best to protect them with a length of stout iron hooping. A hand chair-sledge may be made as shown in the illustration, but the sliders or runners must be narrow and faced with half round iron not exceeding three quarters of an inch in diameter. This chair is frequently used on the Continent by experienced skaters who are thus enabled to push an aged relative or an invalid before them on the ice. A simple sledge may be formed by adding slide runners to a large box or light framework. American boys use the latter when the snow is hard with frost to descend hill sides or other steep inclines of snow, and great fun they make of it.
A rough-home made sledge may be constructed of ash poles for runners, if lashed three feet or even less apart, and a bed formed capable of sustaining a heavy load, which in frosty weather can be easily moved from place to place. The sledges used in Arctic Expeditions are always lashed together by strips of hide; but rope will answer every purpose. If good runners can be had, a clever, handy boy will have no difficulty in constructing a serviceable sleigh.