Now that we finally have snow, we can think about sledding. 100 years ago, plastic sleds and flying saucers hadn’t been invented yet. Sleds with wood or metal runners were expensive, so if you wanted to join the fun, you needed to build your own.

This one-seat sled was built from plans published in 1928 book and you can see the sled at the Norway Museum & Historical Society. The plans called for just three pieces of wood – the seat, the upright post, and a curved piece of wood from a barrel, called a stave. Our sled has been reinforced with extra support for the seat.

If you could find a barrel stave, the sled would be simple to build. Learning to ride without falling off probably took a lot of practice. But isn’t falling off half the fun?