#Scivolare: la slitta fra tradizione, gioco e competizione

From January 30 to April 30, 2026, the Ethnographic Museum of the Dolomites hosts “The Sled between Tradition, Play, and Competition,” a temporary exhibition that tells the story of snow and sleds in all their forms: from everyday means of transport, play and leisure, to sports equipment for Olympic and Paralympic disciplines.
The exhibition develops in two areas:

• Hall of Temporary Exhibitions 
  Here, the exhibition path opens, starting a kind of journey back in time: we immediately enter the whirlwind of speed with a video shot in first person by the athlete who tried out the new bobsled track in Cortina for the first time. It discusses Olympic ice descent disciplines, with particular attention to skeleton and luge, of which two specimens will be displayed, delivered directly from the Italian national teams engaged in the upcoming Olympic Games, thanks to the interest of FISI. The section is particularly dedicated to the Italian champions of these specialties and is enriched by beautiful photos and videos provided by the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. 
  Another sled model captures our attention: it is one specially studied for athletes competing in the sport of Paralympic Hockey. A fast and demanding team sport, in which athletes use two short sticks whose different ends serve both to push on the ice and to score in the opponent's goal.
  Going back in time, we then enter the section dedicated to the development of winter tourism in the Belluno Dolomites, where we will discover that the first lift for skiers was conceived in the 1930s as a huge sled with metal runners, equipped with benches, which was pulled upwards by a mechanical system and was aptly called a sleigh-lift!
  In this section, in addition to enjoying the creativity of designers in creating the most curious shapes of sleds, bobs, and skibobs, we will return to the time of the economic boom when the ski slopes were still shared by skiers and those who preferred to go down with their beloved sled. 
  Taking another step back in time, traditional sleds from the area can be admired, which have nothing to do with the design of the industrial sled we all have in mind: the ferion, or ferada, a heavy and compact ice sled with sharp iron runners, the monopod sled, and the musset, a light snow sled, skillfully constructed with various types of wood.
  
  But the heart of this section is the theme of memory: the anthropologists of Isoipse, Paolo Maoret and Lorenzo Cassol, interviewed dozens of people to collect their testimonies of winters past, of games in the snow, of the enchantment of a winter season where everything was white from November to March, and playing in the snow was a community ritual. A video and numerous beautiful archival photos will transport us to the era when the roads, opened with the varsor, became natural slopes accessible to anyone!
  To further immerse ourselves in the atmosphere, we recommend that everyone listen to episodes of the podcast NEVICA!, produced by Piombo Podcast, which gives voice to our witnesses.
  From here to the storytelling of the exciting community races with street bobs and ancient work sleds is just a moment. On display is a beautiful example of a handcrafted bob, kindly lent by the Casa Museo Angiul Sai in Costalta di Cadore, complete with Olympic rings painted on the front, bearing witness to the enthusiasm and desire to emulate the champions of the '56 Olympics.
  A separate section is dedicated to the natural sledding track of Colmean in Canale d’Agordo, which at the peak of its history hosted World Cup races, with athletes from fifteen nations.
  A final flashback will show the use of the sled as a humble, everyday, and essential means of transport for hay, timber, and stones hard-won from human labor on the steep slopes characterizing the Belluno Dolomites.
  This section concludes with a question: Who brings the sled uphill? And with an extremely representative photo: a woman ready to leave for the meadows to be mowed, with a huge hay sled on her shoulders, covered in turn by sickles, rakes, tarps, ropes, a cauldron, and a small barrel for water, reminding us of the inhuman efforts of the generations that preceded us.
• Slope Hall
  The second and final part of the exhibition is hosted in the slope hall, where the sleds from the permanent exhibition will be further highlighted, recalling their essential role in transporting people (and mail!) during long winter seasons, when horse-drawn carriages had to be put to rest.
  Here, a brand new multimedia station will allow us to explore the Glossary of Snow, that is the infinite nuances for defining snow and snowfall in the valleys of the Belluno Dolomites, a project shared with the online Glossary hosted on the MuseoDolom.it platform, but also the many names by which sleds were defined and the sayings about snow related to the saints of the calendar and the observation of nature in order to predict snowfall.