Explore wild skating on nature

Jen Rose Smith

在野滑愛好者的眼中，湖面結冰，就有了自由

It was cold， quiet， and well after dark when Matthew Baxley glimpsed the slumbering （微睡） fish directly beneath his feet. He was ice-skating in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Below him， black ice revealed （揭露）an un?derwater world in crisp detail.

The early winter"s cold， snowless weather had turned the Boundary Waters into a perfectly smooth， natural playground. "There's just no resistance （阻力），"said Baxley， who tells stories about exploring Minnesota wilderness in his Boundary Waters Podcast. "It really is like flying."

Humans have been skimming across frozen water for many years. The oldest known ice skates， made from animal bones， date back to 1800 BC. The majority of such artifacts come 32 Crazy English 2021.8 from Scandinavia， the Netherlands， and Finland， where the cold weather and landscapes made skates an efficient tool for winter travel.

Thousands of years later， ice-skating on unmaintained lakes and rivers （also called "wild skating"） provides a similar combination of sport and escape. And this outdoor adventure has become a hot trend in cold regions of the United States.

"The sport has just exploded in popu?larity，"agreed Paxson Woelber， a wild skater in Anchorage， Alaska. "Nearby shops sold out of skates in October，"he said， supporting a community of people who spend the cold months hunting for the perfect slippery （滑溜））surface. "It's so special to find good ice，"he said. "A lot of the time you find nothing. But sometimes you do show up and there's just this amazing mirror， a sheet stretching between the mountains. And then it's just incredible. "

For beginning skaters and families， truly wild skating isn't the place to start. A better option is one of the many frozen lakes and rivers that are checked， which means a more pre?dictable surface and a far lower risk of being trapped in the underwater.