Tobogganing

Tobogganing –I’ve heard it said that it’s “the only sport where you can get a workout while sitting down and screaming”.

We take advantage of a very long tobogganing season. We have the hills, we have the vessels, and we have the stories!

Even though we have a normal wooden toboggan, we have used many different vessels to hurl ourselves down our river hills. (Tubes, foam sleds, saucers, plastic carpets, calf sled). Several not mentioned and not recommended, however, a large chunk of cardboard was surprisingly successful in the rapid descent. It has no edges so one could fly off said vessel into the depth of snow, skidding to a sudden stop! Are you going too fast if it’s a blur or snow hitting you in the face so you can’t see? Possibly, but that’s how I travelled down the hill on a tube with my brother-in-law, Ernie several times. In fact, I couldn’t see him on the opposite side of the tube, I could only hear him screaming all the way down. He said it was me screaming but it could have been him!?

It didn’t take us long to pick out the perfect hills; check for rocks, check for buck brush, and can we climb back up? because what goes down must come up! We never had a snow machine or sled of any kind to pull us back up. We considered hooking up to a horse but having a quick review of our “prankster” siblings and friends, we scrapped that idea and picked appropriate hills! We already had our fair share of “crashes”!

In years past, our toboggan parties were so much fun. Lots of people would come, a campfire would be built for warmth and we would roast wieners (of course). Mom would make her famous cocoa, and we would have an exhausting time!

One time we had a friend of our family visiting from Australia. He was here on a year work visa. He had never seen snow before and he just loved it. In fact, he got himself a job for the winter working on the ski hills in Jasper. He came to our place for Christmas and wanted to go tobogganing every day. It would be getting dark before he would come in for the day. He just couldn’t get enough of the snow. I don’t think I’ve ever made that statement!

There was a gentle hill (bunny hill) in my Mom and Dad’s yard where we took the little kids tobogganing while they were still small. These days, that hill suits me fine.