Surreal Skating

I had a surreal experience last night. I was out on the canal with friend after a party (worlds longest ice rink, right here in Ottawa). After getting comfortable enough on my skates to tone down the near panic and explaining to said friends that grabbing and pulling me (especially behind a bike, on the ice) is out of the question due to how uncomfortable I am on skates, we set out for the lake, planning on walking home for there.

As an aside, I know. I'm an embarrassment to Canadians everywhere with my poor skating ability. It's not just that I skate badly (many of my friends claim that they do as well) but that I skate badly by Vancouver Island standards, which are much lower in that respect than the rest of the country. Growing up on the Wet Coast, skating was for hockey players and figure skaters, the rest of us learned little aside from going in circles and hitting walls.

Since moving to Ottawa I've learned how to turn and stop.

Moving on from that digression, we skated a ways down the canal, and dropped our friend with the bike off at his exit to ride home (yes, in the snow), and continued on. That's where it got surreal.

As we skated, at 3 a.m. we passed a succession of guys, dressed in black and holding hoses spraying the canal down with streams of water. The way they worked, it was as if we were invisible - they didn't stop, didn't acknowledge us, simply avoided spraying where we were until we'd passed.

3 a.m. skating outdoors, through clouds of mist, with black-clad figures hosing down the ice. The water froze quickly, but left the surface with an odd, dragging feeling, like skating through a layer of butter.

There is, of course, an explanation. The canal is plowed regularly and on cold nights the NCC (National Capital Commission) sends workers out to flood the canal. This fill sin the smaller divots (though not the larger cracks) and keeps the surface from being destroyed over the skating season.

Still, it was awesome.