With a winter this long, a person has to get creative in finding ways to ‘enjoy’ the cold weather.
I was wandering around the Internet one day and stumbled across a site for a kicksled (or potkukelkka) from Finland.
The photograph showed the sled being pulled by a large dog, but I immediately thought, “My minis could do that!” Two weeks later my own kicksled arrived from a dogsledding business in the Maritimes – it was the last one they had in stock from Finland.
The photo illustrates simple construction of the kicksled. The ski portion sticking out the back is quite flexible – you can even do a snowplow motion on the skis, which helps with braking. A friend of ours who grew up in Finland said he used one to get back and forth from school and that his Mom used one to go for groceries in the local village.
The challenge in putting a horse to this vehicle is there are no shafts thus turning and stopping are quite different than in a cart or carriage.
The dog harness has only one point of attachment to the kicksled so I had to modify that to handle the traces of the harness. As far as stopping goes, there are a couple of options. The simplest is to just drag a foot (while the other foot stays on one of the skis) – this is effective when going down a slope to prevent the kicksled from running up on the horse.
There is the snowplow option – my husband could do that one but I wasn’t strong enough to be effective with that technique.
Another option is to have a rubber matt with holes in it dragging between the two skis. You can step on the mat with one foot while travelling, and that effectively slows everything down, or jump on it with both feet for a quick stop.
For our first attempt (which was hugely successful) we used my all purpose miniature horse Kiprusoff. He was a star.
I led him around the sled, had my husband go sliding on the kicksled while I ground drove Kiprusoff in front, behind and beside the sled.
Next step was to hitch him (Kiprusoff, not the husband) to the sled and give it a whirl. Before departing, I moved the sled up and touched the horses’ hind legs with the sled so he knew the feel (just in case it happened while travelling). Kiprusoff slowly turned his head around, looked right at me as if to say, “Really?”
Off we went. What a hoot! Once I got the balance and rein handling figured out, it was great fun. Even my husband took a spin on it and had a grin on his face.
So, what will I try next?
