Читать книгу Let It Snow. Keeping Canada's Winter Sports Alive онлайн

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Fred Grant recalled what had been lost:

Those old sleighing parties provided many an evening’s happy enjoyment. Their objective was usually out into the country to some farmer’s home, where part of the evening would be spent in a social dance, or “parlour games” in the case of younger people making up the party, and to “thawing out” before taking the couple of hours return trip.

West Street Rink in Orillia during the 1880s.

The box of the commodious old sleigh had been filled a foot or so deep with straw, and robes and blankets galore provided when the weather was really cold and the driving snow bit into a fellow’s cheeks. But in the sleigh days and nights no one was afraid of blizzards. Having got out into the country, many times the roads were found impassable through the drifts and a shortcut would be taken through the fields, and lots of times was the snowfall so heavy that it covered up the rail fences, and when it didn’t as many of the top rails as necessary would be removed to allow a passage.