Skating at the Forks

Little Dutch girl skating....

This year I joined a great bunch of women organized by a little slip of an English woman.  She’s been in Canada for five years now and wanted to experience Manitoba and all it has to offer.  This year we have had many adventures, from weekend camping, to tubing down a river, to riding horses, to the Pembina Valley Amazing Race, to the corn maze, to driving spyder motorcycles and quads, to flying with women pilots.

Our last adventure for 2011 was skating under the canopy at “The Forks” in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada.  The Forks is a place where the Red and Assiniboine Rivers meet and a meeting place of Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years.  Every winter when the river freezes a trail is made to skate on; today because of the warm weather we’ve had lately there is only a small portion available.  They also flood the area under what’s called the Canopy where in the summer they have dancing.

We meet at 10 am for a hardy breakfast in the Forks Market, where there are about 15 of us, some skating today, some not.  The talk around the breakfast table is about my best friend hurting her tailbone stair surfing with a 5 year old.  She is getting a real good ribbing from one of the women; the mood is light, happy and festive.  Now being one that has done stair surfing at said best friends place, one needs to ensure they are fortified with a good bottle of wine and not a five year old sitting on your lap.

They say Ice Skating can be traced back 5000 years ago to Scandinavia and the Netherlands.  Skating enthusiasts laced animal bones to their footwear and glided across the frozen lakes, rivers and canals.   In the 13^th or 14^th century the Dutch invented skates with the use of wooden platforms with flat iron bottom runners and used poles to allow skaters to move around or be propelled. Eventually the blades were replaced with double edged iron blades that could cut through the ice and allow for a swifter and smoother movement.  Since I have a Dutch background, I wear my little Dutch looking hat to fit into the spirit of the skate.

They rent skates for $4.50 at the forks for those who don’t own a pair of skates.  That would be me, even when I was young I would only go skating when I could borrow some.  So yes I am a very novice skater, but excited to see if I would spend my time on my ass or standing up.  The women who own skates have already tied theirs up and are out under the canopy.  I decide on boys skates instead of figure skates, figuring they would keep me from being an ankle burner. 

Ankle burner you wonder?  I have two sons who played hockey from a young age, and the way to fix that is to tie them up real tight.  Since I’ve had the experience of tying up my boys’ skates, and every other player in the locker room for that matter, for some reason they all waited and asked me to tie theirs, I tie my skates nice and strong.

After the preliminary picture taking of one tying on one’s skates, I make my way out to the canopy.  On solid ground I walk fast, strong and confident.  Once I get to the edge where the ice begins is another story. 

Now as I timidly put my first skate on the ice, then my other, I look down and say out loud, come on skates move?  Nothing happens, and then I remember that I have to use my own leg power to make myself move.  If you’ve never skated before, moving on ice can be a challenge, as I try to move one foot in front of the other moving inch by inch.  My best friend feeling sorry for me comes to my rescue and takes my hand and slowly I start to move a little faster.  Now that I’m farther out she leaves me to my own wiles, lucky for me one of the women I’m with who is a good skater, grabs my hand.  I in turn grab the hand of another fellow novice, and her hand is grabbed by another good skater.

Now we are moving in a wide line around and around the ice, I’m thinking this is easy and we are all laughing.  Enter into the conga line, our fearless novice leader and another novice skater.  Now we are four novice skaters in the middle of two good skaters.  It is one of my best friend’s birthdays today, so as we skate around we sing happy birthday to her.  She is not skating today, but snapping pictures, with my other best friend who you'll remember from the conversation at breakfast hurt her tailbone.  One of the novice skaters falls with our fearless leader and thinking she has had enough and wants to try slower on her own she eliminates herself from the line.

Still Standing

The rest of us skate around and around and then finally come to a halt to pose for more pictures, With a twinkle in my eye I look at my fearless leader and say one, two, and three we all fall down, and down I go taking her with me.  I can be such a mischievous gal sometimes.  On the ice we start chatting with a man and his daughter, the daughter is falling all over the place, the man who by the way is Dutch is trying to help her.  We tell him he should go inside and see if there is a chair she could use, an old training aid for learning how to skate.  I silently think to myself, I should get myself a chair.  Inside there is an appliance you can rent, but apparently only one and it’s already been spoken for.  If I was him I would have grabbed one of the chairs anyways lol.

It’s a beautiful day for skating, but alias, this novice skater’s arches are starting to hurt, and I will have to make sure if I go skating again I get myself some good arch insoles to put inside the skates and oh yeah a good strong, tall, handsome man who can skate to hold me up.

The good skaters head down to the river to skate a little longer, while us novice ones go inside to rid ourselves of the skates and have hot chocolate.  While inside the birthday gal and I are getting our picture taken by her sister, when in pops a guy, he puts his arm around me and comes into the picture the sister snaps away.  I don’t know how or why we always have that affect on some men; it must be our fun loving side that draws them near.  All in all it was another adventure with a great group of women.

The guy on the right of me will keep his identity a secret as I don't know him

Soon it’s off to the belly dance emporium to look for a belly dance scarf.....but that will be another adventure.