The Great Skate Project

Outdoor skating rinks are usually rectangles. That's the shape of a hockey rink, and it's also an easy shape to build and maintain. But some outdoor rink shapes are more creative. Skating trails take you on a skating journey. Some are short, some are long, but I think skating trails are always more charming than plain rectangles. Here's a list of Toronto skating trails that I have visited: Brickworks Skating Trail (Great Skate #3) This was one of my first Great Skates. Built under the beams of an old brick factory, the rink is open to the sky, but sheltered from the wind. The rink winds around "islands" of trees. Music, good seating, skate rentals and hot chocolate make this a good place to take new skaters, young skaters and visitors to Toronto. Love Crescent Parkette (Great Skate #34) This is a community rink built by people who live near the park, not Toronto Parks & Recreation. When I visited in 2015, the trail circled trees in the park. Because...

"You should skate on the canal in Ottawa" is something I've been told many times since starting my Great Skate Project. I finally did on January 6, making the Rideau Canal Skateway my Great Skate #45. As a student at Carleton University, I often skated on the canal. I don't recall it having the "skateway" name then, and it wasn't named a UNESCO World Heritage site until 2007, but the canal had two things then that it's still famous for today: more than 7 kilometres of skating, with Beavertail stands along the way. Because the canal is "natural" ice (with no artificial refrigeration), the weather has a big impact on its skating season. The ice needs to be 12 inches thick before it is ready for skating. I was lucky that it opened during my Ottawa visit. My intrepid cousin Ben joined me for a morning skate on my last day in Ottawa. The sky was a brilliant blue, but the temperature was just as cold as it had been for our Parliament Hi...

On Saturday, March 7, I enjoyed a solitary skate at a natural ice rink in Love Crescent parkette .* That was probably my last Great Skate of the season. Since then, the weather has shifted from wintery to spring-like. The sun is warm, the air is soft and you can hear water dripping everywhere. There may be a few die-hard skaters and shinny players out there, but I think most of us are ready to switch to cycling, ball hockey and other warm-weather activities. The Love Crescent rink was first built in 2013 by a group of community-minded skating enthusiasts. The street is tucked away in a neighbourhood just north of Kingston Road in east Toronto. It's not a place you pass through on your way somewhere else; you have to know where you're going to find it. The rink builders were clever. They designed the rink in the shape of an oblong donut. In the centre is a space for shinny players. Around the centre, separated by a wide snowbank, is a track for pleasure skating. There are ...

This weekend, 34 of the City of Toronto's 51 outdoor artificial ice rinks were scheduled to close for the season. For many people, this didn't make any sense: we've been beset by an epically cold winter, so why shut down skating rinks just when Torontonians are getting the hang of dressing for the weather and amusing ourselves outdoors? The answer, as usual, is money. It costs about $4,500 a week to operate each rink, according to the Globe and Mail . The city budget doesn't cover the cost of operating all 51 ice rinks for another month. It didn't in previous years either. Last year, corporate sponsors stepped up to bankroll some of the rinks scheduled to close, and that happened this year as well. So now 29 rinks will stay open until March 22. I'm glad more rinks are staying open. But I'm finding it hard to scrape up any outrage over the fact that some rinks are being closed. Community-Run Rinks in Toronto Here's why: even with the rink closures,...

The skating trail at Arrowhead Provincial Park  opened in 2012, but I first started hearing about it last year. I put it on my wish list, but wasn't sure if schedules, weather and transportation logistics would ever align for me to skate there. On Saturday, February 14, everything aligned. Watch my video of what it's like to skate on the Arrowhead skating trail: Arrowhead is just north of Huntsville, Ontario. It's many hours north of my neighbourhood in Toronto, but not so far from where my parents live in Orillia. I was visiting Mum and Dad this weekend, and they were somewhat surprisingly game to go on this adventure with me. The weather on Saturday had warmed up to -12 Celsius. The sun was shining and the roads were clear. So, dressed in many layers, we set off. Everything went smoothly until we got to the park entrance. It's about a kilometre from the highway turnoff to the park gate, and a long line of cars was snaked along the entire distance. We persever...

By happy chance, my parents live just a short walk away from the Murray Street Park rink in Orillia. After discovering it for Great Skate #9 , it has become familiar territory. Mum isn't keen on the photo, so here are just her legs in skates. I was able to skate there twice this month. The first time, my mother joined me. I have photos to prove it. I thought mum was very brave to try skating again after many years off the ice. She was dismayed at how unsteady she felt, but made it to one side of the rink and back again. I was impressed. Mum was not. "I can't believe it, I thought it would be like riding a bike." (The question arises, when was the last time mum was on a bike?) The next weekend, the entire family was up for a visit. We headed to the rink on Sunday morning, fired up about Canada's gold-medal men's hockey game. This time my dad was brave enough to put his skates on. No photographic evidence this time, but he made it about as fa...

After the disappointment of Great Skate #24, my dad and I headed up Highway 11 to Washago, on the north end of Lake Couchiching. This tiny town  has a skating rink that's pretty close to the platonic ideal. It restored my faith in small community rinks. Surrounded by boards (and snow drifts), the rink has easy access to the warmth (and washrooms) of the community centre next door. A picnic table surrounded by rubber mats makes it easy to change into and out of your skates. The ice was in decent shape, a bit rough but certainly skateworthy. The rink is big enough to accommodate a hockey game, which means there's lots of room for kids to play shinny while other skaters do laps and practice their glides. There were about a dozen people there when we arrived, and more coming on when we left. I was hoping my dad would join me on this rink, but he changed his mind. Maybe I shouldn't have made fun of his skates. (If mine are vintage, his look like antiques.)

Last Saturday I was at the Couchiching Beach Park skating rink in Orillia. It was the first time the Great Skate Project visited a rink that was actually on a lake. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment. The weather was perfect - brilliant blue skies, lots of sunshine, crisp cold temperatures and no wind. It hadn’t snowed for a few weeks, but the landscape was still transformed by the snow that had fallen, drifted and been piled up earlier this winter.  According to the City of Orillia website , the rink’s ice condition is “dependent on ice thickness.” That’s impressively obvious yet vague. “Not good” would have been a more accurate description. The rink is a very big rectangle near the marina. The easiest access point is from the boat launch ramp, about 20 feet from the rink.  When my dad and I got to the rink, there were just a few people there. The deepest snow had been cleared from the ice previously but there was still a thick layer of frost on the surf...

Last winter I spent a lot of time wishing it was colder. Mild weather made the ice mushy, and I idealized the frosty conditions that would lead to a perfect rink. This winter I got what I wished for. The ice rinks have been in excellent shape. But just getting home from work without hypothermia seemed like a triumph some days. (I exaggerate, but not by much.) Summoning the energy to leave my cosy house to voluntarily spend time in arctic weather was daunting. I wondered if I should start a new blog called the Great Hibernation Project. Now the days are getting lighter and the cold snap is easing. My Great Skate adventure isn't over yet! This weekend, I'll be looking for a new rink to skate on in Orillia. Until then, here are some photos of my grandmother, taken when she was in her late teens, enjoying a frosty day of skating in North Bay. (I miss you, Grandma!) This snapshot was taken in 1941. There's no date on this photo. Love the mit...

When people talk about outdoor rinks in Toronto, they are usually talking about the 53 artificial ice rinks operated by the city, plus the ones at Harbourfront and the Brickworks. But there's another whole category of outdoor rinks in Toronto - the ones I call neighbourhood rinks. Unlisted on the city website, maintained by volunteers and completely dependent on the weather conditions, these natural ice rinks feel like secret spaces. You learn about them from people who live nearby, or by stumbling across them when you take a shortcut through a park. Or, when your five-year-old niece gets invited to a skating party and excitedly tells you about the rink afterward. (The rough ice near the sign isn't part of the rink.) That's how I learned about the rink at Orchard Park (near Dundas and Coxwell). I checked it out on January 26. The rink was empty when I arrived at noon, but the ice was clean and smooth. I sat on a nearby picnic bench to put on my skates. As I ...

Orillia has seven public outdoor rinks. So far I've only skated on two of them - the Murray Street Park rink , and the First Baptist Church rink . I was back in Orillia on the February 23/24 weekend, but didn't have a chance to add a new Great Skate site to my list. My dad and I drove out to Sparrow Lake, to see if there were any opportunities to skate there. But while the scenery was beautiful, and the ice was thick enough to support fishing huts, there wasn't a clear, smooth patch for skating. Even the rink at one of the local resorts was slushy and neglected. Sparrow Lake: hope they bring those benches in before it thaws. Later, once my sister's family had arrived, the prospect of driving all over town with small children hoping that one of the new-to-us rinks would be in good condition wasn't very enticing. So we ended up back at Murray Street Park, which is so conveniently located just a few blocks from my parent's house. There was a skim of snow...

It's a new year, and a new chance to enjoy outdoor skating! The goals of my Great Skate Project are simple: try to skate on a different outdoor rink each weekend, and encourage as many friends and family members to join me as possible. Great Skate #14 - the first Great Skate of 2013, on New Year's Day - was a quiet one. Unlike last year , the weather was perfect for skating: cold and sunny, with lots of snow on the ground. I wasn't feeling ambitious, so I headed for Fairmount Park , not too far from where I live. On my way there, I ran into my friend Mike. When I told him where I was headed, he told me he's one of the "ice masters" who volunteer their time to keep Fairmount's two natural ice rinks maintained. Way to go, Mike! This photo shows one of the rinks. The other one is right next to it, but it isn't surrounded by boards. There's a picnic table and lights, but that's it. Wondering why this rink is so empty on such a pe...

I spent most of my childhood Christmases at my grandparents' in North Bay. On Boxing Day, we'd go to my aunt and uncle's farm in Powassan, and there'd often be a family shinny game on the frozen pond. These photos were taken in 1984. That's my sister in the grey snow pants, my uncle Steve on the left and my cousin James in the middle. See how far away the barn is? The house is closer to the barn than the pond. Skating on Boxing Day meant taking a long walk first. It also meant trying to keep up with the hockey skills of our uncles and cousins. The little guy in the second photo is my cousin Luke. Aunt Linda is there too. I asked my dad why we don't have photos of Boxing Day skating from other years, and he said "probably because it was too bloody cold." Too cold to take photos, not too cold for skating. Another memory I have of Boxing Day skating is trying not to cry as my feet thawed in the warm house afterward. Good times.

When I was growing up, my grandparents lived at Trout Lake in North Bay. We spent our Christmas holidays there, and the weather was nearly always cold enough to have a rink on the lake in front of the house. I think this is where I learned how to skate. That's me on the left, with weak ankles. My brother Paul is standing next to me. The date on these photos says 1978. Note that we're still in the era of non-snazzy snowsuits for kids. One winter, Trout Lake was frozen but there was no snow - we could skate all along the shoreline. There was also another place to skate at my grandparents' house: a pond created by a beaver dam in the bush behind the house. We were very lucky kids. With our cousins, Peter and James.

The rink is a lot smaller than I remember. The date on this photo says 1975, which means I either four or five years old, depending on which side of the year this photo was taken. That's me on the right. On the left is Shani, the girl who lived next door. The rink is in our backyard in Brampton. My dad built it. We are dressed for an arctic trek, even though we are only about 12 steps from the back door. These were the days before children's snowsuits came in colours other than navy blue, brown and grey.

I had half a plan to skate at all the outdoor rinks in Orillia in one day. After all, there's only seven of them, and I'd already been to one without even realizing it. But the other half of the plan that I hadn't thought through included: the weather (even Orillia is having a warm winter, and the natural-ice skating rinks weren't faring well), the transportation (I don't have a car, so someone else has to drive), and the timing (we had to wait until my nieces were asleep for the night). So when Laurel and I headed out to find the skating rink at First Baptist Church on the evening of Sunday, February 19, I hoped it would be worth it, because the odds of getting to the other rinks were slim. We found it, eventually, after some slight confusion with the Bethel Baptist Church, which is about a block away on the same street. The First Baptist Church rink is fenced and has lights, although they weren't on. (Our skate was illuminated by the glow from the...

It's always good to get away from familiar settings for a while and broaden your horizons. It makes you realize what you've been taking for granted. Great Skate #9 took place on Sunday, February 19 in Orillia, where I was visiting my parents for the long weekend. (And also celebrating my dad's birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad!) The rink is just a few blocks away from their house. To call it low-key is an understatement. It's a perfectly decent, natural ice rink. But that's all it is. There are no benches, no lights, no fence, not even a sign. I didn't even realize it was one of the rinks listed on the Orillia rinks website until my dad pointed out that this rink, located on Murray Street, was in fact the Murray Street Park Rink. I thought it was just an empty lot that some enterprising neighbours flooded and froze. And I know it makes me sound like I don't get out of the big city often enough, but I'm amazed there isn't at the very least a ...