Every Saturday in January and February, draft horses will give sleigh rides at the Forest History Center in Grand Rapids.

“We’ve had horses at the Forest History Center for the past 40 years or so, but we’ve recently got these two new teams, and we’ve made an effort to substantially up our horse programming,” John Beltman said.

The sleigh rides are about an hour long through the woods on the 170-acre property of the Forest History Center. It includes a stop in the logging camp to warm up with hot chocolate.

“I think it’s good for people to connect with horses and to see what horses can do and sort of gives them maybe a better idea of what life was like in the early days, not just in logging camps but on farms and in cities as well,” Beltman said.

The center has one team of Belgians, Hank and Barney, and one team of Percherons, Chad and Chuck. Beltman says they’re remarkably well-trained, which comes down to trust.

“We all have to trust the horses, that they’re not going to do anything dangerous or that they’re not going to hurt us,” Beltman said. “Horses are kind of prone to panic. And it’s the humans – they rely on us to believe that everything’s going to be OK. And they’ll do some really amazing things if they trust you.”

Sleigh rides happen four times a day on Saturdays through Feb. 24. Get tickets here.

There is also a Winter Adventure Family Fun Day coming up Feb. 17 with sleigh rides, a snowshoe scavenger hunt, a sliding hill, and more.