Alford Lake echoes with sound. The deep rumble of ice slowly shifting. Whirs from a two-cycle ice fishing auger. Steady, soft swishes from four men in helmets gliding gracefully across the ice as they harness the chilly southwesterly wind.
Unlike many skaters in North America who rely on indoor rinks and zambonis, these ice athletes depend on the weather for placid "wild ice." Today is a good day for sailing, but when the winter gusts halt, making travel in homemade ice boats difficult, the men strap on Nordic ice skates - a cross-country ski boot fitted with what looks like the heel edge of a 17-inch chef's knife.
The popular northern European long-distance skating has, until recently, been a relatively obscure passion in North America. "I think for the next couple of generations, people will just be discovering it," said Jamie Hess, who runs a Nordic skate shop near the New Hampshire border in Norwich, Vt.
Eight years ago, Mr. Hess built a groomed outdoor track, a trail open to anyone with the skates. It proved instrumental in introducing the sport to more athletes across the Northeast, where individuals had been partaking in the fringe winter sport alone or in small groups.
"We're making it a social activity," Hess said. "That's something that has existed for generations in Europe but didn't exist here." Now, a couple local clubs have sprung up to organize outings. Hess's virtual clubhouse has swelled in membership.
In Sweden, local government councils regularly clear long skating paths on the ice for long-distance skating. On sunny winter weekends, thousands of Swedes flock to the nation's small lakes and the number of skate club leaders alone reaches into the hundreds.
"It's kind of like hiking or skiing. It's so easy," says Mark Harris, a British expatriate who works as an engineer in Uppsala, Sweden's fourth-largest city. "You don't need to be fit like you do for skiing. With skiing, you need to be a bit more sporty."
No small feat
In North America, Nordic skating has caught on with middle-aged skaters and those who find their feet hurt in hockey, figure, or speed skates, Hess says.
Last year, northern Vermont officials considered a marketing campaign encouraging cross-country skating in order to spur winter tourism - and boost other wintry inland events off the slopes like ice fishing. There's been some hope that Lake Champlain - despite its bitter wind, cold, and snowfall - will become a sort of "West Coast" for New England.
For those who can't make it to frozen terrain in Sweden or Siberia, US tours go around Lake Champlain, Lake George, and up the Connecticut River.
Whiz kids
Still, more winter rain has been good for resurfacing lakes. In late February, members of Maine's informal Chickawaukee Iceboaters Club park their cars on the thick glassy surface of Alford Lake. In home-built iceboats, Jory Squibb and Bill Buchholz whiz around at speeds of up to 50 m.p.h.
Dicky Saltonstall parks his iceboat, the Icywood, and pulls out a pair of skates from the back of his van. He catches the wind and says, "You feel like you're a barn swallow out for a little sail."
Although the Morgan Hill Times does not have any obligation to monitor this board, the Morgan Hill Times reserves the right at all times to check this board and to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to the Morgan Hill Times in our sole discretion and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. The Morgan Hill Times also reserves the right to permanently block any user who violates these terms and conditions. All threats to systems or site infrastructure shall be assumed genuine in nature and will be reported to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. Submission of any comments will be considered permission to use online or in print.
All sold out: Black Friday draws predawn crowds
