Snow Inventions

Wheeled Snow Shovel

• Strained backs and shortness of breath are things of the past as you wheel an arty little gadget down one side of the front walk and up the other. The Sno Wovel is a wheeled snow shovel that couldn't be simpler. A large snow shovel with a two-grip handle is mounted on an oversize single wheel. Just push the wheeled shovel into the snow and deposit the load where you want it. The wheel does most of the work and all of the lifting. You still get a bit of a workout but nothing too stressful. No carbon footprint to harm the environment either. And the Wovel is as charming to look at as an old-fashioned boneshaker bike. The clever invention is perfect for the aesthetic snow shoveler on your list.

Snow Bully Manual Plow

• For bigger snow removal jobs, digging your way out just got a lot easier with the Snow Bully, the invention of a Michigan man who spent his childhood shoveling paths from the house to the barn on the family farm. His solution is a large curved snow plow blade fixed in front of a wheeled frame with four tires on ball bearings and an easy-to-grab bar handle. It clears a path from the house to the driveway, or the backdoor to the cowshed, without much pushing and in record time. Another green idea, the Snow Bully has ball bearing power to save your energy and the planet's.

Snowblower

• The powered snowblower has been through a few incarnations. It started as a patented idea dreamed up by a Toronto dentist in 1869. But that model was never built. In 1884, the first mechanical snowplow was built, a train-sized affair that would clear the tracks and anything else that got in front of it. In 1894, a Quebec teenager adapted a thresher to a tractor and created a snowblower that worked on roads. His name was Arthur Sicard, and he is generally credited with inventing the forerunner of the modern snowblower. Today, snowblowers are as common as lawnmowers and are often stored next to them in the garage. Personal size machines you can walk behind and guide as the motorized contraption does the work for you now come with heated handles, automatic rotators and battery-powered electrical starters.

Baking Tray Surprise Snowfall Sled

• An unexpected overnight blizzard is no challenge for the inventive cook. Grab a baking tray and the kids and head outside for that neighborhood slope or a short hill in the park. The baking tray makes a fine sled -- the ones with handles on either end even let you hold on while you whoop your way downhill. No one has to miss a snow day because the sled is in storage or hasn't arrived yet or fell apart last season and you haven't replaced it. If the tray isn't wrecked after your big snow adventure, use it to bake holiday sugar cookies to dunk in hot chocolate after a sledding party.