Custom Sleds (Part 1)

Folks who’ve been to the Northern Toboggan Co. website are aware of our primary product line of wooden toboggans and wooden sleds. Those who have dug into it more realize that our products have been developed over many years of real life use in Northern Canada where sledding is a way of life for many.  

Our primary products are the various sizes of traditional towing toboggans, custom downhill sledding or family recreational coasting toboggans, and various sizes of wooden runner freight sleds. Also the accessories that can go along with these. To be sure many of our products have been customized to better suit by our customers themselves.

Over the past 20 something years there have been a number of various “Custom Sleds” built here as well for specific applications. Be it a wooden toboggan or a flexible wooden sled there are alterations and/ or additions made in the design to accommodate a specific need.

We are currently in the process of developing the “Custom Sleds” pages for our website so now might be a good time to talk about some of the innovations we’ve came across to this point at Northern Toboggan Co.

My mentor who lives in northern MB would utilize the toboggan boards that broke in the bending process and make “wood hauling” toboggans with them. These toboggans didn’t have the traditional curl but rather a brief curled front like a sled runner. These were a good product for him as he had a fair number of walk in customers who lived in the area that burned firewood to heat their homes in wintertime.

My personal “wood hauler” has been around here for perhaps 20 years and is a tuff sled for sure. Getting up your own firewood is an annual project that can be done in a variety of ways. Sometimes its real handy and other times not so much. It’s heathy work and making it easier is always a consideration.

The basics are that to make wood logs, the trees need to be felled, cut into stove lengths, split, dried, and brought to the house. There can be a lot of variables to how this is all done depending on the individual’s circumstances.

For those of us who have access to good trees growing in the woods close to our home, getting the wood out of the bush and home can be a challenge. Some ways are more of a chore than others…

I like to cut the trees and haul them out in 8 foot lengths with my snowmobile and “wood hauler” toboggan in March, while we still have snow on the ground. I like to do it in shorter sessions, around 4 hours a day. When the going is good I can pace myself and get a cord felled, limbed, cut to 8’ lengths, loaded on the toboggan, hauled, and piled next to my drying ricks. Later on in springtime I’ll cut the logs to stove length, split, and stack pieces to season over summer.