It looks like a small houseboat balanced on skis from a distance, but is actually a school bus. Dubbed Windsled, it carries school children of La Pointe, on Madeline Isla to classes several weeks out of every year. Lake Superior, the largest, coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes, makes around two miles of jigsaw ice blocks that create a floating road of shallow depth and cuts La Pointe from the mainland town of Bayfield, the location of the upper school. The 9,000-pound ice vehicle is propelled by its twin fans and has padded benches with room to accommodate around 20 students. The bus is heated and that’s the end of on-board luxuries. The windsled is a high-maintenance machine owing to the pounding it takes on the ice. Originally, it was built in 2000 with a grant of half a million dollars from the federal Department of Transportation. Operating cost for windsled per year goes over $20,000. It was $21,358 last year. The windsled was built by Arnie and Ronald Nelson and is kept light on the skis by its forward motion and the way the design handles its four and a half tons over its 336 square feet. This is one of the most unconventional modes of student travel all across the world.

Windsled - A School bus on Skis Picture Gallery

via NYtimes / Photo Credit: T.C. Worley 186897