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travel / travel magazine / winter 2006
Cool Trips
Iceway promenade
When winter arrives, Ottawans become ice commuters and tour guides on the world's longest rink
By Rick Boychuk
AS A COMMUTE, it's exhilarating. Despite the wind chill. On even
the coldest mornings, I join many of my neighbours for a glide to
work or school down a 7.8-kilometre-long ribbon of glass, the Rideau
Canal Skateway.
Of course, I'm never just skating in to work. In my mind, each
thrust of my powerful thighs is bringing me closer to Olympic glory.
I can hear the crowds roaring. I'm pulling ahead of that guy motoring
along Colonel By Drive. He gooses it. I kick it out and leave him
in a spray of ice shavings.
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COOL ICE UNDER OPEN SKIES
Are you tired of glass-smooth
Zambonied arena rinks? Here are
some great Canadian outdoor skating
sites you can really sink your
blades into:
• Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa hits its
frigid peak during Winterlude (Feb. 2-18, 2007), an annual winter
festival where skating performances, competitions, ice sculptures,
concerts and Beaver Tails draw thousands of visitors.
(800) 465-1867;
www.canadascapital.gc.ca/
winterlude
• Bonsecours
Basin at the Old Port of Montréal is a complex of rinks — an
artificial sheet and a halfkilometre natural surface — on the
edge of the St. Lawrence River, at the east end of Old Montréal,
set against a backdrop of 18th- and 19th-century buildings.
(800)
971- 7678;
www.oldportofmontreal.com
activites/info_pat.asp
• Grouse
Mountain's Ice Skating Pond in North Vancouver, a 740-square-metre
surface at the top of Grouse Mountain, offers a spectacular view of
the city below.
(604) 984-0661;
www.grousemountain.com
• Killarney
Lake, in a park eight kilometres north of Fredericton, is cleared
daily for skaters to enjoy.
(506) 460-2230;
www.tourismfredericton.ca
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Rounding a bend, I run smack into the wind. My thighs are no longer
heavily muscled but rubbery from a lifetime of desk work. A grandmother
on speed skates flies by me. Here comes a pack of yakking teens
on the way to school. They sail past. My parka is puffed out, creating
so much wind resistance that it feels as if I am climbing stairs.
Now I'm just another nine-to-fiver trudging to the office. The hard
way.
Completed in 1832, the Rideau Canal runs from Kingston to Ottawa
and was built to sidestep American gunboats on the St. Lawrence
River. But fear of an American invasion soon evaporated, and the
waterway has never been used for anything other than shipping and
recreational boating. The small section of the canal that is billed
as the world's longest skating rink runs from the Hartwell Locks,
on the southern end of the city, into a pond called Dows Lake, then
all the way downtown to the locks that lower boats into the Ottawa
River. First groomed for skating in 1970, the rink proved so popular
that the effort invested in maintaining it expands every year. It
is swept and flooded most nights, so morning skaters step onto clean
ice. And with change-room chalets spotted strategically along the
length of the iceway, you don't have to lace up in the cold. Vendors
are positioned beside every chalet. You can warm up with coffee
and nosh on nachos or Beaver Tails, a local delicacy that is a bannock-like
piece of dough, deep-fried and garnished with your choice of garlic
butter, sugar and cinnamon or jam. You can have your skates sharpened
or rent a pair of blades for an out-of-town visitor or a bright-red
sleigh in which you can push the kids.
An old friend showed up unexpectedly last winter for a short visit.
We had an afternoon free and she wanted to see the sights. So we
bundled up and walked the block from my place to the nearest chalet
on the canal. Our blades on, we started at the south end, near the
locks. Arm in arm, we skated along, in rhythm to my running commentary.
Carleton University over there, I pointed out, and on the opposite
side the Central Experimental Farm's arboretum. We skirted the Glebe
neighbourhood, thick with parliamentarians, reporters and pundits.
We passed the castle-like Canadian Museum of Nature and ducked under
Pretoria Bridge. Picking up speed, we slid by the University of
Ottawa, the headquarters of the Department of National Defence and,
finally, the National Arts Centre. Now in the heart of downtown
Ottawa, we wobbled into a chalet, changed into our boots and strolled
to the ByWard Market for dinner. Just as she was finishing her dessert
and coffee, I mentioned that we'd be skating back under starlight.
Blisters, she lied with a straight face, then paid the bill and
hopped into a cab, leaving me with my blades and an icy headwind
to battle all the way home.
Iceway commuter Rick Boychuk is editor-in-chief of Canadian
Geographic Travel.
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