A Fjord horse drawing a sleigh.

A sled, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle with a smooth underside or possessing a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners that travels by sliding across a surface. Most sleds are used on surfaces with low friction, such as snow or ice. In some cases, sleds may be used on mud, grass, or even smooth stones. They may be used to transport passengers, cargo, or both. Shades of meaning differentiating the three terms often reflect regional variations depending on historical uses and prevailing climate.

In Britain the three terms are generally quite similar in meaning, although sledge usually refers to a smaller sled, used mostly for freight, one that can generally transport no more than one or two persons with only a limited amount of cargo. Sledges may be pulled by dogs or other smaller animals, although confusingly a sledge pulled by a dog in British English is often referred to as a dog-sled. A small recreational sled, pulled by humans, can also be referred to as a sledge.^[1] Sleigh (pronounced "slay") remains largely a synonym for sled regardless of its capacity (and similarly in Canada).

In American usage sled remains the general term but often implies a smaller device, often for recreational use. Sledge implies a heavier sled used for moving freight or massive objects (syn. "stone boat"), while sleigh typically refers to a moderate- to large-sized, usually open-topped vehicle equipped with one or more passenger seats, essentially a cold-season alternative to a carriage or wagon, typically drawn by horses or (at least in the Santa Claus legend or in reference to Scandinavia) by reindeer.

In Australia, where there is limited snow, sleigh and sledge are given equal preference in local parlance.^[1]

Etymology[link]

Horse-drawn sleigh ride, Pakenham, Ontario, Canada

The word sled comes from Middle English sledde, which itself has the origins in Old Dutch word slee, meaning "sliding" or "slider". The same word shares common ancestry with both sleigh and sledge.^[2]

Types of sleds[link]

Sleds for recreational sledding[link]

Boy on snow sled, 1945

There are several types of widely used recreational sleds designed for sliding down snowy hills (sledding):^[3]

• Toboggan, an elongated sled with no runners, generally made out of wood or plastic
• Saucer, a round sled curved like a contact lens, also with no runners and generally made out of plastic or metal
• Steel runner sled or flexible flyer, a steerable wooden sled with thin metal runners
• Kicksled or spark, a human-powered sled
• Inflatable sled or tube, a plastic membrane filled with air to make a very lightweight sled
• Foam slider, a flat piece of durable foam with handles and a smooth underside

Sleds for competitive sledding[link]

A few types of sleds are used only for a specific sport:

• Bobsled (British bobsleigh), an aerodynamic composite bodied vehicle on lightweight runners
• Luge and the skeleton, tiny one or two-person sleds with runners

Various types of sleds are pulled by animals such as reindeer, horses, mules, oxen, or dogs.

Other sleds[link]

A horse-drawn "stone boat", a sled used in horse pulling competition, Spring Fair, Woolbrook, NSW

• Airboard, an inflatable single-person sled, similar to a hovercraft
• Troika, a vehicle drawn by three horses, usually a sled, but it may also be a wheeled carriage
• In some regions, "sled" ^[4] is colloquial slang for a snowmobile
• In arctic regions, the Inuit qamutiq is uniquely adapted for travel on the sea ice
• Ahkio or pulka, a traditional sled of the Lapland region, originally pulled by reindeer; now more common as a human or snowmobile-towed sled often used for cold weather expeditions by mountain rescue teams and military cold weather units to haul equipment, supplies, and passengers
• In truck and tractor pulling, an implement pulled behind the machine which uses friction to stop the machine.^[5]

Historical uses[link]

The people of Ancient Egypt are thought to have used sledges extensively in the construction their public works, in particular for the transportation of heavy obelisks.

Sleds and sledges were found in the Oseberg "Viking" ship excavation. Sledges were useful not only in winter but can be drawn over wet fields, muddy roads, and even hard ground, if one helps them along by greasing the blades with oil or alternatively wetting them with water; in cold weather the water will freeze to ice and they glide along more smoothly with less effort to pull them. The sledge was also highly prized, because - unlike wheeled vehicles - it was exempt from tolls.

Man-hauled sledges were the traditional means of transport on British exploring expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic regions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Dog sleds were used by most others, such as Roald Amundsen. Today some people use kites to tow exploration sleds in such climes.

An enormous cargo sled being maneuvered by a 10K-AT "All Terrain" forklift at McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

See also[link]

• Bobsled
• Luge
• Mudsled
• Pulka
• Skeleton
• Ski
• Snowboard
• Snowmobile
• Toboggan

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sleds

• North America's Horse Drawn Sleigh Rides

Antoinette "Toni" Halliday (born 5 July 1964) is an English musician best known as the lead vocalist, lyricist, and occasional guitarist of the band Curve.

Early life and career[link]

Halliday was born on 5 July 1964 in Parsons Green, Fulham, and brought up in various locations across Europe, before eventually settling in Washington New Town, Tyne and Wear.

From 1978 to 1980, Halliday was the lead vocalist in a punk rock band named Photofitz (initially called The Incest), after which Toni left to start a solo career.

The first commercially-released recording to feature Halliday was the single "The Smile and the Kiss" (1983) by the group Bonk, on which she performed uncredited backing vocals. The following year, Halliday's new band The Uncles released the single "What's the Use of Pretending", whereupon the singer returned to performing backing vocals for other artists, including the Robert Plant albums Shaken 'n' Stirred (1985), and Now and Zen (1988).

In 1985, Halliday and multi-instrumentalist Dean Garcia formed the band State of Play together with Garcia's wife Julie Fletcher and Eurythmics drummer Olle Romö. The following year, State of Play released an LP on Virgin Records titled Balancing the Scales - a non-hit album that spawned two non-hit singles: "Natural Colour" and "Rock-a-bye Baby".

After the subsequent demise of State of Play, Halliday made another attempt at a solo career. Her album Hearts And Handshakes (produced by Halliday with Alan Moulder) was released in 1989, a year after it was finished, and four singles were taken from it, "Weekday", "Love Attaction", "Time Turns Around", and "Woman In Mind".

Curve[link]

Dean Garcia had played on Hearts and Handshakes, and the pair now collaborated to form Curve, with Halliday serving as lead singer; their partnership would last from 1990 to 2005. The group's main releases are the studio albums Doppelgänger (1992), Cuckoo (1993), Come Clean (1998), Open Day at the Hate Fest (2001), Gift (2001), The New Adventures of Curve (2002), and the compilation The Way of Curve (2004).

Scylla[link]

In 1995, a year after the first, temporary dissolution of Curve, Halliday formed the band Scylla with Ricky Barber, Lindy Pocock, Fiona Lynsky and Julian Bown. The group toured small clubs in the summer of 1995. Scylla's only recording to have been officially released is the song "Helen's Face", which can be found on the soundtrack album for the film Showgirls. Another Scylla song, "Get A Helmet", can be heard in the Gregg Araki film Nowhere. Scylla recorded a 12-track demo with both Alan Moulder and Flood producing, but no album was released. A poor-quality bootleg of these demo tracks can be found on the internet.^[1]

Other work[link]

Following the emergence of Curve in 1991, Halliday co-wrote and performed vocals on two songs for the 1992 Recoil album Bloodline, and also put in guest appearances on The Future Sound of London's Lifeforms (1994) and Leftfield's Leftism (1995). Other artists with whom Halliday has collaborated include Paul van Dyk, DJ? Acucrack, Acid Android, Freaky Chakra and, more recently, The Killers on their 2006 Christmas track "A Great Big Sled".

Chatelaine[link]

In February 2008 Toni introduced a new solo project called Chatelaine on MySpace.^[2] Chatelaine's debut album "Take a Line For a Walk" was released in June 2010. It featured nine new tracks: "Broken Bones", "Oh Daddy", "Life Remains", "Stripped Out", "Shifting Sands", "Killing Feeling", "Take a Line For a Walk", "Head To Head" and "Seen and Lost".

Rumours of Curve reuniting and recording in 2011 proved false. Toni continues to work on the next Chatelaine album and other upcoming collaborations.

Personal life[link]

Halliday is married to the British record producer Alan Moulder.^[3]

Discography[link]

State of Play[link]

• Balancing the Scales (1986)

Toni Halliday[link]

• Hearts and Handshakes (1989)
• For Tomorrow's Sorrows (2005 - not released)

Curve[link]

• Pubic Fruit (collection of EPs from 1991, released 1992)
• Doppelgänger (1992)
• Radio Sessions (1993)
• Cuckoo (1994)
• Pink Girl With the Blues EP (1997)
• Come Clean (1998)
• Open Day at the Hate Fest (2001)
• Gift (2001)
• The New Adventures of Curve (2002)
• The Way of Curve (2004)

Scylla[link]

• Demos (recorded 1996, released 2007)

Chatelaine[link]

• Take a Line For a Walk (2010)
• TBA (2012)

Collaborations[link]

Toni Halliday provided vocals on the following songs:

• Recoil — "Edge To Life"
• Recoil — "Bloodline"
• Leftfield — "Original"
• The Future Sound of London — "Cerebral"
• Freaky Chakra — "Budded On Earth To Bloom in Heaven"
• DJ? Acucrack — "So To Speak"
• Paul Van Dyk — "Words"
• Acid Android — "Faults"
• The Killers — "A Great Big Sled"
• Headcase — "Lola"
• Bonk — "The Smile and the Kiss"
• Bias — "Things That Dreams Are Made Of"
• The Future — "Night Makes You" (backing vocals)
• Robert Plant — Shaken 'n' Stirred (backing vocals)
• Robert Plant — Now and Zen (backing vocals)

References[link]

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Chatelaine MySpace page
3. ^ http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-musicians/curve-biography

External links[link]

• "Curve: Frequently Asked Questions #14" at curve-online.co.uk
• Recovery: unofficial Curve site