For more than 30 years, Saskatchewan farmer, bricklayer, oil patch worker and all-round tinkerer Lloyd Garthus has made toboggans out of his shop in Admiral, Sask.
According to Garthus, most of the thousands of sleds he has produced over the decades out of thick plastic are still running as fast as ever.
Garthus got into toboggan making because he needed one for his son, and after seeing his sister break a wooden baby sleigh dragging her child along the walkways of Regina, he vowed to build a better one.
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Using a piece of discarded plastic, Garthus fabricated what would become his first of many sleds.
“The only thing I had to build anything out of was this scrap of plastic I had in the back of my old work vehicle,” he said.
From there, Garthus said he began developing more robust toboggans. He found a supplier of thick plastic in Moose Jaw and incorporating runners on the larger sleds to keep them sliding straight while not wearing out the main body.
With encouragement from the owner of a local McLeod’s Hardware store where Garthus acquired the fasteners for his sleds, he began marketing the Svensen Toboggans following a trade show for owners of the chain of stores.
“I had made four toboggans and a baby sleigh and the (buyer) looks across at me and says, ‘is there a chance you could have 12,000 ready by Aug. 15?’ ” said Garthus.
While that potential deal fell through, Garthus continued producing sleds, reaching 1,100 in one season by the fifth year of production.
“I’m at just about 19,000 toboggans I’ve sold in 32 years,” he said, adding the amount produced each year depended on the weather conditions and consumer demand.
The toboggans come in various colours and sizes, ranging from three to seven feet long (0.9 to 2.1 metres) by 16 inches wide (40.1 centimetres) with a seven by two foot ( 2.1 metre by five centimetre) model designed as much for hauling bales as for taking a trip down a hill.
“You don’t need a mountain to have a good day tobogganing,” said Garthus. “As kids, we used to find the biggest, ugliest hill to climb up but now with these, you need the back of a ditch for a young kid to slide down. You need 10 degrees, not 45 degrees to get a good ride.”
The toboggans will last a lifetime, he added, if you store them out of the sun.
“A lady brought back a four-foot toboggan that she got when she was 10 years old and she’s 37 now,” said Garthus. “It cracked a little bit because it was left out in the sun but it’s 27 years old.”
In cases like that, he said he doesn’t mind fixing an old sled with some plastic shavings, as long as you don’t try telling him it wasn’t stored outside in the sun or another tall tale of damage.
“I don’t mess around if you’re trying to screw me on a Svensen,” he said.
Out of the thousands of sleds he’s produced, Garthus said he’s only had to replace a little more than a dozen of the earliest versions of the toboggans.
But one of his continuing joys of producing the sleds is seeing customers return and commenting on the longevity of the sleds.
“I’m never going to get rich or handsome so I might as well have the fun of listening to stories of what kids have done on these things,” said Garthus. “When you get a 40-year-old guy coming to you at the farmers market and starts telling you about all the stuff they used to do on them, it’s so cute. Kids will be kids.”
It remains very much a cottage industry for Garthus, who also produces a 30-foot flexible, extendable grain bagger spout as well as pottery. However, he said he is always on the lookout for dealers for the Svensen Toboggan and will continue to sell them out of Admiral with prices varying depending on size and shipping.
