Jim McArdle cruises the trails of Bud Miller All Season park on his kick-sled during last season. He’s hoping for snow soon so he can get back on track.
With the delay in winter weather, many outdoor sports enthusiasts can only wait and wish for the white stuff to fall so they can begin their season.
Jim McArdle is no exception. Ever since he got on a kick-sled it has become an important part of his life and has made a positive impact on his health.
“Flashback to the fall of 2020—the first winter of COVID. I like the outdoors, and I’m looking and going, ok, I need to get out of the house,” said McArdle.
“I tried cross-country skiing in college and realized I do not have the coordination to go do something like that, and I know my knees can’t handle the pounding of running anymore like I used to.”
During a 2018 trip to the Yukon, he began reading an in-flight magazine and decided to subscribe.
“It was October (2020) when the fall/winter edition came out and they had an article about kicksledding in the Yukon,” said McArdle, adding that’s what sparked his interest in trying it out for himself.
He started looking into getting a sled and found out that the distributor in the Yukon wouldn’t ship down south, but there was another distributor out of Quebec he could order from.
“At that time, for under $400, I could get a sled and give it a try.”
His sled arrived in Lloyd in December 2020, he assembled it and went out to Bud Miller Park to give it a try.
“At first I wasn’t sure which trails to use, so I started making my own. And then I finally started noticing these other trails—the multi-use trails.
“I got in there and started doing this and … I’m feeling a little bit of a burn on the old body because I’m not used to it initially. It’s actually easier on your knees because all you’re doing is swinging from the hips.”
McArdle is diabetic, and he says kick-sledding made a positive impact on his health in just a few months.
“I didn’t realize until February, I had my blood tests. And lo and behold my blood sugars were down quite a bit and my cardio was pretty good,” said McArdle.
“And being new to the thing I was too stupid to realize that most people don’t go out and do 7.5 km in an hour on a kick-sled,” he laughed.
Since 2020, he has added two additional kick-sleds to his collection and has shared his experience with others. He says it’s an easy process to teach.
“You get the stability, you’re standing up, you’re holding onto the handle with one foot on a runner and I’d say, five to seven kicks with the other foot and then press that foot on the runner, glide a little bit, and then switch feet.”
He says Bud Miller Park was a great place to get started and to continue kick-sledding because of the amount of trails available.
“I’ve got all of these routes mapped out through Bud Miller Park, which is an excellent park. Last year I went out to a bunch of different parks around the midwest, and nothing beats Bud,” said McArdle, adding he introduced a couple of fellow park-goers to kicksledding, and he still goes out with them. Or at least he did last season when there was snow.
“The one guy I run into quite a bit out there, his name is Dave. It’s kind of funny because when I first met him he was walking his dog, and I let him go give it a try and the next time I saw him he told me he ordered one of them.”
McArdle said Dave has a daughter who works at Rendell Park School, and last year he and Dave were invited to their winter carnival. He said it was a great time all around.
“We had about 400 kids come through and try them. The kids were just having a field day, in fact, the snowshoe station that we were paired up with saw no love that day. Everybody wanted to be on the sleds,” said McArdle.
“The neat part was Dave’s daughter, she has a special needs student that she looks after, and she was able to put that student on the kick-sled and push her around the yard and the kid just loved it! She was able to do something that all the other kids were doing.”
Unfortunately, memories of past years are all McArdle has so far this season. He said the 2022-23 season was amazing because of the amount of early snow that fell.
“I was so happy last year because literally I started on the fourth or fifth of November and I went until the tenth of April.”
To find out more about kick-sledding in Lloydminster check out their Facebook page: KicksledYLL.
