Skating into Winter

By Kimberley Campbell

We have hot summers and resplendent autumns, but it is winter that establishes the character of our country and our psychology, the Canadian Mood.

~Robertson Davies

It had been a long time since my fingers had awkwardly pulled on the laces of these figure skates, a Christmas gift from my parents when I was twelve. Now twenty-nine, I was enjoying a delayed honeymoon with my new husband, in Quebec City at the Carnaval de Quebec, the Quebec Winter Carnival, a huge annual celebration of all things winter.

My husband and I did not usually celebrate winter at all. Instead, we usually clung to the safety and comfort of the couch and stayed indoors all winter. Winters left us feeling a little blue and sluggish, both mentally and physically. In our home in Fredericton, New Brunswick, winters typically lasted from November until the end of April. We were not fans of this long and dreary period of the year, and it was an odd choice for us to spend our honeymoon in cold weather. However, we were attempting to try some new activities that might help us to, if not embrace winter, at least tolerate it a little better.

Now, as we sat side by side on a wooden bench at the outdoor skating arena, we were surrounded by a crowd of rosy-cheeked smiling people. They seemed to almost hover over the frozen surface as they glided smoothly across the ice in their skates.

"There is no way that I can do that!" exclaimed my husband, looking down at his borrowed hockey skates. "If I fall, there's no way I'll be able to get up again!"

"Well, I'll try it first," I offered, even though my own thoughts echoed his fears.

I stood up unsteadily, holding tightly to the wall surrounding the rink. I cautiously placed one skate blade onto the ice and kept both hands on the wall, holding on with a grip that kept my knuckles white. As I moved my feet against the ice, pretty soon it started to come back. After all, I had done this before. Before long I was moving in laps around the edge of the rink, carefully staying within reach of the wall so I could catch myself if necessary.

Inspired by my foolish performance, my husband gathered his courage and joined me in my clumsy movements across the ice. Holding onto each other, we were soon red-cheeked and smiling ourselves, just like the people we had watched with envy only a short time earlier.

To our amazement, it was the greatest and most inspiring afternoon of our trip! We discovered that we loved to skate!

As soon as we arrived back in Fredericton my husband did some research and discovered four arenas in our city offering recreational skating time. Suddenly, we were enthusiastic about the remaining winter ahead. We became preoccupied with how to fit the skating time slots into our weekly schedule.

My husband was skating almost every noon hour and we both eagerly anticipated the evening and weekend skates. Before we knew it, April had arrived, and skating season was over.

One sunny afternoon this past winter, we were skating around an outdoor rink at a local park enjoying the fresh, cold February air. We both had hockey sticks in hand, and laughed as we attempted to pass a puck back and forth across the ice. Looking around at the snow covered fields that sparkled in the bright afternoon light, I realized all we had been missing by dreading winter. Staying hidden inside and complaining about another long Maritime winter was no way to spend nearly five months of the year. By just trying something new, and perhaps looking a little foolish on that winter afternoon in Quebec City, we had opened a door to a new, more fun, and much healthier lifestyle.

We were no longer sitting on the sidelines, waiting for another season to pass us by. We're enjoying every day of every season, and all the possibilities that each of those days holds!

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