Skating forward

A shorter update this week as I juggle a few big projects and associated looming deadlines. I will be able to share a few of those projects soon. They’re fun, I promise.

My Ottawa Citizen column this week is about skating — in Ottawa and in Huntsville, Alabama. Well, mostly here. In Huntsville they’ve already figured out how to make it work, and their winters are significantly milder than ours.

I love the setup they have, too. Downtown by the lovely Museum of Art and Big Spring Park. Kind of like Ottawa’s Rink of Dreams, but in the South. I was at the opening last year and the year before that I got to watch Southern kids giggle and play on the ice — a little wobblier on blades than Canadian kids, but doing quite nicely indeed. I look forward to my next visit in January, maybe I’ll lace up.

I know. Keeping a rink open isn’t the same as prepping 15 or so kilometres of pristine ice. There’s been a little bit of talk about changing the thickness standard on the Canal to make it easier to open it even if we don’t get temperatures as cold as we had in 2022.

There are safety concerns, obviously. There isn’t a lot of water underneath the ice, but it would be unpleasant to fall through it regardless. And there’s heavy equipment, too. Maybe it’s time to consider using different equipment, smaller trucks, I don’t know, something?

Winter in Ottawa without skating on the Canal just isn’t right, and we need to be flexible and adapt to a different climate instead of giving up. Here are pictures from February 2022, the last time I skated.