Story by Lynda Dunal
Toronto offers an array of winter activities to keep most sports enthusiasts happy. One activity I have recently become reacquainted with is skating. One Saturday late afternoon this past January my husband and I were cycling on our way to try the outdoor rink at Harbourfront. As we biked along the path that runs adjacent to the south end of Grenadier pond I called out to him to stop a moment because I was hearing sounds from the pond. Peering through the rushes at the side of the path we were delighted to see skaters gliding around and across the frozen pond.
As it was nearing dusk we continued on our way to the brightly lit Harbourfront rink but early the next morning we put our skates into our backpacks and hiked on down to the south end of the pond. We knew that the city had started to monitor the pond for skating and felt some reassurance with this. Parting the bushes to gain access to the pond we were excited to see skaters of all ages and abilities enjoying the clear frozen surface. We sat on the ice to don our skates, slipped our backpacks on with our shoes inside and pushed off.
The ice was amazingly smooth and there were stretches of black, clear ice – I imagined I could see through to the bottom! Scattered about were intricate patterns etched just below the surface where either bubbles were frozen in time or cracks had refrozen into spider like shapes. We glided lazily along, past impromptu hockey games, past people just walking on the ice and families holding hands, laughing at the joy of being on such an open space. It was wonderful to skate all around the pond, gazing up at the stately homes bordering the west side of the pond, noticing details you never could see once foliage appears and never being able to get so close. Most properties have a canoe hidden close to shore! Our time was limited but we were able to enjoy several revolutions of the pond before skating to the north end where we removed our skates and continued on our way. We seldom get conditions such as this, continuous, smooth frozen ice, no snow and cold enough to create a thick enough surface to support us.
Note – it was only later that we learned the city monitors just a small area of the pond – not the whole pond that we enjoyed. We have all the other brave skaters that went before us to thank for giving us the reassurance that the rest of the pond was safe enough for us!