Skees.
Skee running and jumping is one of the faorite winter sports in Norway and Sweden, and it is steadily growing in favor in Canada and the northern United States. On very steep hills it is a dangerous sport, but it is perfectly safe to use the skees on either short or long hills that are not too steep; for once you start, you must go to the bottom, and a good skee-jumper must be as agile as a cat and always land feet down when jumping. A good skee of the right proportions should be 9 feet long and 4 inches wide, and made of hickory, oak, or other hard wood, not more than ½ inch thick; and along the entire length, at the bottom, two or three grooves cut in a straight line will hold the skee-slider on his course as the keel does a boat.
Fig. 12. Skees.
The skees are tapered and bent up at the front ends, as shown at 1 in Fig. 12, This can be done by steaming and gradually bending until the proper pitch is obtained.
At the middle of the skee a foot-block is attached and provided with a toe-strap, as shown in Fig. 12. This strap fits under the block, and can be removed if necessary, as a lap is cut at the under side of the block.
A shorter and broader skee is shown in illustration 2 of Fig. 12; this is 5 feet long and 6 inches wide, and is safer for smaller boys to use.
Some of the Norwegian skees are beautifully carved and ornamented, and the boy who has some decorative ability can embellish the tops of his skees and varnish them all over to improve their appearance.
A simpler and cheaper skee, but not so good, is made of a barrel stave, as shown at 3 in Fig, 12.
Ice-sails.
In using an ice-sail the boy is the boat, and by his handling of the sails he can go either before the wind or by tacking, as in a boat. The skating-sails shown in the illustrations are improvements over the old style of attaching two diamond-shaped cloths to the ends of yard-arms. To make the frame obtain two clear pine or white-wood sticks 12 feet long, 1¼ inches square, and taper them slightly toward the ends with a plane; at the same time rounding the corners at the top of one stick and the bottom of the other, as shown at C in Fig. 15, which represents a sawed-off section of both sticks.
With linen line wind the sticks for an inch or two every nine or ten inches of their entire length, to strengthen them; and tint this a dark color, then varnish the sticks or give them two coats of paint. Next get two more sticks, each 5½ feet long and ⅞ inch square, and plane them smooth, at the same time tapering the ends slightly—these are for the cross-arms; and at the middle of each one lash fast a block, 5 inches long and ⅞ inch square, having a pin driven in each end, as shown at A in Fig. 15. These pins fit in small holes made at the inside of the yard-arms, 4½ feet from either end.
Fig. 12. Ice-sails.
