London Toboggan and Snow Shoe Club Ribbon
Date1888-1889
Dimensions14.6 x 4.1 cm
Credit LineGift of Mrs. W. R. MacGregor, London, Ontario, 1964
Object number1964.006.300
Label TextSnowshoeing and tobogganing clubs began to spring up across Canada from the 1860s. By the late 1800s, Londoners had embraced the sports. Members of London’s Toboggan and Snowshoe Club were among the many Londoners who paid annual memberships to access different toboggan slides. At various times, London boasted slides at Wolseley Barracks, Western University, as well as two others on the Thames River. At 485 feet long and with a double chute, a ramp constructed on the Thames River near Albert Street was one of the most impressive. Said one London Free Press reporter in January 1887 about tobogganing down this slide: “Fast? No express train ever equaled the speed, the terrific momentum which the toboggan attains at that supreme moment; but it is soon over. There is a whizz, a thousand electric shocks as the frosty air cuts against your face, a flash as you pass one, two, three electric lights, and then you glide swiftly over the ice and snow on the river, bump over half a dozen little hillocks and finally come to a standstill about three or four hundred yards from the point of starting. The walk back up by a winding, easy path, is where the exercise comes in.”
NameRibbon, Insignia
