Discover Kick-Sledding - Something New, that's old!

“Discover Kick-Sledding”

 

“Something New, That’s Old”

Back in 2001, while surfing the internet I stumbled upon a cool looking sled called a CrosSled.  I was originally looking for articles or advertisements for Flexible Flyer Sleds because my wife and I had seen a 6 foot long sled at a household sale, that was heavier duty than the littler 5 foot one I had when I was a child, and I missed out on being able to buy it.  Someone else had purchased it before I had made up my mind I wanted it.  Anyhow, during my search on the internet I discovered a new sled called the CrosSled that looked really cool.  I did a little more research and discovered the generic name for this sled is a kicksled.

In Scandinavian countries like Norway, Finland, Sweden, and even Germany; these sleds are quite prevalent.  For example, in Norway, it is common for a family to have 4 or 5 sleds.  The children use their kicksleds to go to school, the Dad will often use his sled to go to work, and Mother’s can be seen going to town with their little ones on board to do some shopping.  Not only are they very practical for people living above the Arctic Circle, they are cost effective, and provide great exercise for the entire family.

The origin of kicksleds is a bit sketchy, but it seems the idea came from attaching a chair to a pair of cross-country skis for use in ice-fishing.  Sort of like a dog sled without the dog.  The fisherman could attach all his fishing gear to the chair, ski out onto the ice using the ski’s to spread his weight out, thus not breaking through the ice, and finally setting up and using the seat for a chair to sit on while fishing.  It was a great idea that spread and evolved into what is now known as a kicksled, or in Swedish a Spark-Stotting (Kick-Push-Thing).  Many use the word “Sparking” to describe the activity of Kicksledding and the person using the kicksled as a “Sparker”.

I showed my wife the articles and what-not I had found on kicksleds and she too had never heard of them.  So, I printed off a picture of a CrosSled to take to work with me.  I showed it to the guys I worked with and none of them had ever heard of such a sled either.  I showed the picture to my family members and no one seemed to have any idea what it was.  No one I met had ever heard of a kicksled; but, they all agreed with me that they looked like a lot of fun and were pretty cool looking.

A plan started to form in my mind about how I might take advantage of finding something really cool that no one seemed to have heard of before.  I talked it over with my wife and we decided to contact the owner of CrosSled’s, who lives in Unionville, Ontario, Canada (Basically, a suburb of Toronto).  I told him who I was and what I wanted to do and we came to an agreed upon whole-sale purchase price.  Then we scheduled a meeting where my wife and I would travel up to Canada to meet with them and buy some sleds to bring home to sell.

We were excited and couldn’t wait to go up to meet them.  I told Knut, “We’ll be up for sure, as long as we don’t get a blizzard like the blizzard of ‘77”  Me and my big mouth!  On the day we were suppose to go up Buffalo, NY got nailed with 10 feet of snow!  Everyone in my family called us up to warn us not to try driving up there and when I checked out the sky-cams of the Peace Bridge I saw what they were talking about.  The weather was absolutely miserable up that way and our chances of making it to their house safely would have been very slim.  So, we canceled and changed our meeting to a couple weeks later.

On that day, everything went great, and we made it to their house in just over three hours travel time.  We were met with smiling faces, firm handshakes, and made to feel right at home.  Knut, shared his own story with us, how he’d been down-sized from a company he had worked for, he came up with the idea of importing kicksleds.  He had looked around Canada and thought, “The winters up here remind me of the weather in Norway, I wonder why there aren’t any kicksleds?”  So, he started importing sleds from Tynset, Norway and selling them under the name CrosSled.

My wife and I joined them for dinner at a nice restaurant in town and then before we headed home I loaded up our van with three sleds.  They come in three different sizes, men’s, woman’s, and children’s, and I wanted one of each to show and hopefully sell.  There isn’t much difference between the men’s and woman’s sleds; but, the child’s sled is much smaller.  Having the sleds paid for and all loaded we went back in their house for coffee and conversation.  Knut disappeared upstairs for a few minutes and when he returned he was carrying two complete ski outfits.  They were specially tailored to show off the CrosSled logo and thus promote the business.  There was a ski coat, ski pants, a turtle neck shirt, and a hat, all sporting the CrosSled logo.  My wife’s outfit fit her wonderfully, and my outfit I found later, fit my brother perfectly!  I’m a 2x and the largest outfit Knut had was a large.  Oh well.  He wasn’t asking us to pay for them.  He just wanted us to be able to look more professional when we were out selling the CrosSleds.

Knowing we had a long drive ahead of us still, we figured we better get going; so, we thanked them for their generous hospitality and headed for home.  We had a nice ride back and headed off for bed.  It was just a few weeks later when we set up at our first Festival at the Audubon Society’s Snowflake Festival.  It was a warm day out, 60 degrees, and almost no snow as to be found anywhere.  That is beside the patch approximately 30 feet wide and around 90 feet long, located directly behind the Audubon’s main building.  So, that’s where we set up our sleds for people to try.

They were a smash hit!  Everyone loved them and enjoyed scooting across the snow from the moment the Festival opened to 10 minutes after the Festival ended.  I actually had to let a young child run into me before I could get him to stop!  I asked him if he enjoyed the sled and he said, “I sure do!”  Then I said, “Then tell you folks that you want one!”  He ran off with an ear to ear smile on his face.  It was great meeting so many people and watching their children try something they’d never seen before.  A couple people however, knew exactly what our sleds were because they were from Sweden.  The one gentleman told us, “I haven’t seen one of these sleds in over 70 years!  Not since I was a little boy living in Sweden,” his eyes all awash with memories of many years past.

After six hours of young and old running with our sleds back and forth all there was left of the snow was a lot of mushy slush.  It turned out, our sleds were the big hit of the festival, and even though we didn’t sell one sled, we too had an absolute blast!

For advertisement, I had made up laminated signs which I taped with clear packing tap to the side windows of our van.  Plus, I decided to leave my sled assembled, and locked to the roof rack, so everyone could see it while we drove down the road.  This worked really well and caught the attention of many people.  One in particular was an elderly lady we met at the supermarket one evening.  We’d just gotten out of our van and were heading inside when we heard this small voice crying, “Excuse me, excuse me!”  We turned and looked and here was a woman hustling up the side walk our way trying to catch us before we went in the store.  She asked, “Are you the folks with the sled up on the roof over there?!”  We said, “Yes, that’s our sled.”  She then exclaims, “Then I have a story to tell you!”  For the next hour she regaled us with childhood memories of some seventy years past when her Dad use to work for a company in town that manufactured sleds like these.  She said she still had hers, which the grandchildren play with each winter, the Fenton Museum had one, and the woman who owned the Viking Trader also owned one.

She hadn’t seen another kicksled, other than these ones, since she was a little girl, and was just thrilled to see we had one, and were attempting to sell them.  At 85 years of age, she had such vivid memories from her youth, and the adventures they use to have.  Hooking up several with ropes to make one long train and then sliding down some hill, all her friends, and her laughing all the way!  What a wonderful privilege it was to meet Helen Norberg Nash, and to brighten her day.

Our next Festival that winter was the Chautauqua Sleigh Rally just up the lake from where we live.  Again, it was another 60+ degree day, and there was no snow in the parking area where everyone was setting up.  The sleighs that were there to show for the folks all had wheels attached to their runners so they could still be drawn around by horse; but, what were we going to do was our dilemma?  I took a box out of the back of the van and went over to where snow had been plowed and piled off to the sides of the parking area.  Using my foot, I broke up some snow, filled the box, carried it over to where we were set, and dumped it on the pavement.  I made several trips back and forth until I had a trail at least 60 feet long and approximately 3 or 4 feet wide.  I got out one sled and set it up on the path to see if it would work and it glided across the trail just fine.

Over the next five hours, children and adults alike tried out our sled by going back and forth on this homemade trail.  The kids just loved it and many adults again were fascinated by how easy it was to use.  One child just kept going back & forth, back & forth, until his Mom said, “Let’s get going!”  She was half way across the parking lot before she realized her son was still going back & forth!  This time when she told him to come however, she had a hold of his hand, and he went as Mom told him to. 

Making that little trail worked out great and we even managed to make a sale to a woman who lived near Rochester, NY.  I left the sled assembled for her and slid it into the rear of her large Chevy Suburban.  The sponsors of the rally told us they were tickled with our venue and that we helped save the day, so-to-speak, because of all the fun the children had with our sled.

Having made a sale we decided to buy some more sleds from Knut to sell; but, rather than having him ship them to us in the states, he brought them down to a Burger King just over the border where we met him.  All he asked for was $50 towards gas, which compared to shipping them was a really good deal.  Plus, it was great being able to sit down and visit with him for awhile and share our stories with him.

Over the next three years we had many more adventures with our sleds and sold quite a few to various people here and there.  One place in particular, a Church Camp, bought a half dozen sleds from us to use in their winter Youth Haven.  They were perfect for children with handicaps to use and added a fun, healthy, activity to their winter program.  We also sold several sleds to folks who are into dog sledding around here.  They found out these sleds worked great for training their dogs and were much cheaper than a typical dog sled would have cost them.

Since those days the company in Tynset had to increase the prices on their sleds because of the rising cost of steel; so, Knut no longer could import them as he had been.  It just wasn’t cost effective any longer.  Therefore, Knut had to close his business down, and look to a new career just as I have.  Where I pursued the goal of becoming a school teacher, he went to work as a business teacher in a University in Toronto.  We still have a couple sleds for ourselves to use during the winter months but our days of selling sleds is past now.  I checked into the possibility of buying sleds made in the USA; but, the only sleds manufactured in the USA are made mostly of wood, where ours were made of tubular steel & wood. Plus, the sleds made in the USA are much more expensive than our sleds were.  So, we had to give up on the idea of ever selling them again and just be happy with sharing them with folks we meet while out Kicksledding during the winter months.  If you get the chance and want to know more you can Google kicksled and read more about the history online.  Some ski resorts I located over east of NY have kicksleds for their guest to use; so, if you’re over that way you can always try one out for yourselves.  I hope my readers have enjoyed learning about something new that’s also old.