GOING DOWNHILL

by Ben Robicheau

In the days before Ski-Doos and Arctic Cats the biggest, fastest winter vehicle in Westport was the bobsled. This was a home-built contraption with four steel runners, the two in the back were fixed and the two in the front could swivel from side to side, providing a modest amount of steering capability. The main body of the sled consisted of a board which connected the front and back sets of runners and was long enough to hold four or five kids sitting in a row. The person at the front was the “steerer” and the person at the back was the “pusher”. As indicated by the name, the pusher would start the sled off by running behind and pushing for three or four steps before making a wild leap and hopefully landing on the last few inches of board not already occupied. A bobsled was built to run on ice and on a steep hill could attain exciting speeds.
In Westport there was really only one bobsled run, and that was on the New Lane. This was due in large part to the efforts of one young man. For some reason he had been saddled with the unfortunate nick-name of “Clarabell” and he lived with his parents in the last house on the New Lane, just across from the church. I’m not sure how his fascination with bobsleds started, but I imagine he must have looked out one winter’s day and realised that with a little help, the hill he was living on could provide hours of entertainment. As soon as it got cold enough, he would be out there, occasionally with others helping, scooping water from the ditch onto the road. Sometimes it would take several days of diligent watering to produce a suitable layer of ice. Only one side of the road was iced, leaving the other side for cars to go up and down. Drivers would carefully share the road with the sliders and each other. Even the roadmaster, Brad Delaney, would usually try to avoid spreading sand on the icy side of the lane. With the moderate and fluctuating weather in Westport, the icemaker’s work was sometimes in vain, just as he was building up a good bed of ice, the temperature would rise by ten degrees overnight, resulting in nothing but bare ground for his effort the next morning.
But on those rare occasions when the thermometer stayed below freezing for several days in a row, every kid on the island would flock to take advantage of Clarabell’s toil. The ice run stretched from the church down past the Back Road to where the hill started to level out. At this point you would usually come to a grinding halt before reaching the Front Road. Occasionally, after a freezing rain or maybe extra watering by the icemakers, you could continue straight on or veer to the right past the Vestry steps and down a short trail that came out near the Irishtown bridge. If you decided to go straight you had to make a sharp left or right turn at the Front Road, or make a slight jog to the right and run off onto Bowers’ wharf. These manoeuvres required an experienced and skilful pilot, there were at least a couple of instances where the unfortunate sliders were unable to master the turn and ended up continuing straight ahead over the breastwork and onto the beach.
Most of the sliding took place after dark when it was colder and the ice was a bit harder. There were three or four bobsleds on the island and kids also showed up with toboggans, one-man sleds, flying saucers, Crazy Carpets, just about anything that would slide. This made for quite a mix of ages and equipment, all going up and down at random with the big bobsleds periodically thundering down the hill scattering everyone in their way and all the while cars would be passing by just inches from the barely under control sliders. Surprisingly, I don’t recall any injuries although there must have been a few, and close shaves were just laughed off as a natural part of the fun.
Although the bobsled was the undisputed king of the New Lane, there was one other sliding device that I believe was its equal for excitement and danger, and it wasn’t even a real sled.
One day the Coca-Cola people showed up at my fathers store and attached two round, red and white signs to opposite ends of the building. A couple of summers later Dad took them down to repaint the store. He was a little slow about putting them back up and that winter it occurred to us kids that they might make good sleds. It took only one run for us to know that those signs would never be going back up on the wall.
Because they were shaped like the commercial “Flying Saucers” that were available at the time, we gave the signs the same name but in many ways they were much superior to the store bought version. They were made of heavy gauge steel and were about four feet across, so they could hold several kids at a time. Because of their size and shape, they would slide well on anything from heavy frost to deep snow, and the lighter they were the faster they would go. There was no way to steer, so you usually went down the hill while rotating wildly, adding to the excitement. The inside was smooth, painted metal so there was no traction and nothing to hang on to for the riders who would slide around and fly up in the air with every bump. The lip of the saucer was a sharp unprotected edge and every once in a while you would come down on this edge. There are probably still people on the Island with crescent shaped marks on various parts of their bodies.
One day we were sliding in Shelly Bailey’s front yard, ending our run at an old picket fence just before the Front Road, when a young lady happened along. Although she was at an age where makeup and hairdos held more interest than sliding, she decided to give the saucer a try. Not wanting to ride with “little kids”, and although we warned her about the tendency of the saucer to go faster with less weight, she insisted on going alone. We set her off with a good push and she flew down the hill, picking up speed as predicted, and when she reached the bottom of the run instead of being stopped by the fence, she blew right through it, sailing straight across the road and over the breastwork. Luckily, the tide was up so the saucer hit the water, skipped a couple of times, then slowly sank under her. Drenched to the neck, the distraught young lady waded back to shore, dragging the saucer behind her and swearing a blue streak. She had a memorable ride, but I’m pretty sure her hairdo and makeup were ruined.
One evening a couple of years later, I was hanging onto a rope tied to the back bumper of Barry Mortons’ car and was being pulled along in the saucer which was zigzagging back and forth across the road. There was quite a fierce snowstorm going on and we expected the roads to be pretty well deserted, when we suddenly met oncoming traffic. I pulled on the rope to swing in behind Barry’s car but my timing was off and I swung back out again right in front of Dick Thompson’s station wagon. Seeing that a collision was unavoidable, I hung on to the rope and stood up. I struck the front of the car and was pulled across the hood by the rope, landing on the road beside the car. I don’t know who was more scared, me or Dick. I spent a couple of days in bed with a badly bruised hip, but the real victim of this fiasco was the saucer, it ended up under Dick’s front wheel, bent and twisted, its sliding days forever over. It was dragged out from under the car and unceremoniously dumped over the breastwork, a sad and inglorious end to a great instrument of winter fun. – brobicheau@cogeco.ca