By Helen Atkinson – Leduc, Alta.
When I was about eight years old, dad found a worn sleigh four-inches tall and two-feet long. A rope tied just above the two runners at one end, it was in the old garage at a house we’d just moved into. He painted it bright red.
It could go very fast, so everyone wanted to borrow it. Although I didn’t admit it then, its speed frightened me and I willingly used a variety of sleighs when the other kids borrowed mine.
I can still picture one of the other sleighs, as it frightened me, too. Made of grey wood, it was built about a foot off the ground. It had wide flat runners and a heavy rope tied to the front. It lumbered and was easy to tilt the rider off halfway down the road.
Since our sleigh-run was the main street in the village, the snow was always packed tight. The sleighs could go fast as long as there were no horses taking bags of grain to the mill.
End of run treat
We’d start at the top of a small hill, carefully turn right at the United Church, pass the feed mill, and finally drag our feet to gradually slow down just before reaching the bridge going over the river.
A widow lady lived at the bottom of our run. We’d march up to her door and she would treat us to the best, juice-dripping butter tarts I ever tasted. When we finished our tarts and wiped our chins, we’d put on our mittens and head back to the main road.
If we were lucky, we could hitch a ride on the back of a sleigh being pulled by plodding horses on their way to the mill with bags of grain. We’d unhook our ropes from the horse-pulled sleigh, make our way back to the beginning, and run down the slope again.
