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Reflections

Skating...the Beginning
by Richard Oswald


    I've often been asked where I learned to skate. To say that I learned on a beaver pond when I was living in the bush would be true enough, but there is much more to it. I was raised in the bush about fifteen miles west of the Knik Glacier with three other people. We never had a lot of money that I remember -- most people in the bush don't -- and our house, built above a swamp some 300 feet up the side of a mountain, was quite small. There was no electicity, running water (you ran out to the creek to get it), television, or telephone. Our light was provided by a kerosene lamp left over from the colonial days of the Territory of Alaska, and it was only turned on when it got really, really dark, this to conserve kerosene. In the winter, there isn't a whole lot to do in the bush. Its too cold to sit outside, so you just read, cut wood to stay warm, and try not to choke the stuffing out of those around you.

    One day when I was in my early teens digging through some old boxes (in the bush you also have a lot of boxes of stuff), I found an old pair of figure skates dating from the late 50's that belonged to my Dad. When I tried them on they were way too big, so I just stuffed cloth in the toes so they would fit. These skates weren't the greatest compared to what I use now, but at the time I thought I had the best skates in the world.
click for larger pic  About two miles from our house there were two beaver ponds, one quite large, nearly a lake. The day after I found my treasure I decided I was going to learn to skate. As soon as it got light enough I grabbed a shovel and my skates and headed off to the second beaver pond. It took several hours to remove enough snow so that I had room to skate. This removal of the snow was repeated regularly, as it snowed often throughout the winter. As far back as I can remember I've enjoyed watching and reading about figure skating, so when I put on those skates I pictured myself as one of those skaters I had learned about.

click for larger pic  The rest of the winter I went to the beaver pond as often as I could and got good enough to skate forward, backwards, and turn. But without any formal instruction that was about as good as I would get. Of course I thought I was great! By the time the pond had frozen the next winter and I got my skates out to put them on, I had outgrown them. I was very upset that I wouldn't be able to skate anymore. My Dad was never big on sports, and we didn't have much money to waste, so a new pair of skates was out of the question. And so that put an end to my skating career, until I got old enough to buy my own skates, and pay for the lessons to learn how to use them.