Ice skating is physics.

A narrow blade applying an exact pressure on the ice, enough to melt it quickly but briefly, lubricating the metal, allowing the skater to enjoy almost frictionless travel.

The freezing of lakes and rivers itself is an uncommon physical act as water transitions from liquid to a crystalline solid, shedding density such that the ice floats on the surface, rather than sinking to the depths. For more than 100 years in Jasper, the physical intersection of freezing and thawing has enabled skating in the great outdoors.

Red-faced in black-and-white

The first images of people skating on Jasper’s lakes were taken a century ago. In the early 1920s, groups of women and men, dressed rather formally, were photographed gliding across the ice, or posing for pictures with our familiar mountains in the background. From 1924 and ’25, photos of Jasper’s first hockey teams appear—both men’s (boys) and women’s (ladies) teams, some associated with the high school, all looking flushed, fresh from an outdoor skate.

This was no shinny. Jasper has a 100-year history of travelling hockey teams, and for a little more than half of that time, those teams played outdoors. Sometimes on lakes, but also on the outdoor rink that was the centre of town until the early 1960s.

Stranger than friction

The physics of staying upright on skates (a skill I have inexpertly mastered), interacts with the pressure dynamics of the skate blade to make low-friction glide possible. The key is to keep your weight over the skate, which melts the ice beneath, and keeping your body mass in-line with the earth’s gravity. If you do it right you stay upright and can pick up great speed. If you do it wrong, neither happens.

If you really do it right, you can use centripetal (not centrifugal; ask local science teacher Geoff Fraser) force to turn, before you pile into that snowbank. Yes, snow. The rub of skating outdoors is that snow blankets the ice, resisting shovels and hiding pucks, simultaneously enthralling the skiers while frustrating the skaters. On outdoor rinks, snow is also key for delineating the playing surface.

Boards replacing snowbanks was a leap forward in local sport development. Before 1961, when Jasper’s arena was built, figure skaters, recreational skaters, and hockey players frequented Jasper’s outdoor rink (complete with boards) at the intersection of Bonhomme and Pyramid Lake Road. Under the watchful eye of rink manager, Sid Knutson, Alden Bradley remembers helping out at the outdoor rink after school.

Lions and Panthers and Bears…oh my

In the ’50s, the rink was framed by a main building at one end. The building was heated by a four-foot potbellied wood stove—a place for patrons to lace up their skates. At the other end, a separate dressing room building allowed hockey teams to gear up and rest between periods. No Zamboni of course, but legions of volunteers created the fresh sheet coveted by figure skaters and hockey teams—like the Elks, who played on Jasper’s outdoor ring in the 1930s. There was a commercial league that same season. Later Jasper years saw the rise of the Buckaroos, Lions, Wolves, Panthers, Rockets, Combines, Aces, Jettes, and of course the Bears. 

If you want to learn about hockey in Jasper, Alden is your guy. He’s always played, captaining Jasper’s senior teams throughout the ’60s, and even skating for Saskatchewan’s storied Melville Millionaires one season. But his memories skating on the many frozen lakes and ponds around Jasper are among his most fond. Alden remembers piling enough players for two teams into his Model A Ford, roof cut off and tricked out with a sofa for a back seat. Chucking in an old tire (for the bonfire), they’d rattle out to Patricia Lake, Valley of the Five Lakes, or the Twin Lakes for some hotly-contested shinny. The wardens would show up to make sure the fire was under control and to make sure Alden’s Model A was not defying Newton’s laws of physics with its loose cargo of Jasper’s youth.

The road less travelled

In those days, Hinton, Edson, Grande Cache, and Stony Plain were Jasper’s main hockey rivals. But in the ’20s and ’30s, Jasper’s men’s and ladies teams were competing against Lucerne, Red Pass, Valemount, Blue River, Pocohontas, and Edson (with fewer than 300 people, Hinton was too small to ice a team). Home games were played on the outdoor rink, and away games were reached by rail; most of the games were played in the towns along the main line between Jasper and Kamloops. Sophia McLean, Gladys Butler, and Jim Findlay were starring for Jasper back in 1923 and ’24; surnames you can still find in town. 

If physics has worked in favour of Jasper’s skaters over the years, it has also worked against those seeking a more comfortable skating environment. In the late 1940s, the post-war popularity of hockey and figure skating in Jasper created a demand for local, indoor facilities to extend the season and give the shovelers a break on snow-days. Eventually, a building was ordered to cover the outdoor rink, and but for the unyielding laws of physics, Jasper would have had an arena a decade before one was actually built.

The building was fabricated near Edmonton and was scheduled to make its way to Edson, by truck. In 1951, a good all-weather road had been completed between Edson and Jasper. But although Highway 16 was good, it was apparently not good enough. As Alden Bradley recounted, west of Edson, the road was deemed unfit for travel of such a heavy load (the Brule Tunnel prohibited transport by rail). As such, physics gifted Edson a temporary covered rink to replace one that had recently burned. Jasper would have to wait another decade. Gravity is apparently as dangerous in the foothills as it is in the mountains (again: ask Mr. Fraser).

Law of the landscape

The legacy of outdoor skating in Jasper is 100 years old and counting. The outdoor rink at Patricia Circle may be gone, but there are plenty of icy options in and around Jasper to you’re up to testing your skills against Newton’s laws this winter.

It has been said that physics exposes the fundamental oneness of the universe. Whatever. If it means we can skate on Pyramid Lake, I’ll pretend to pay attention in remedial Physics 10.

John Wilmshurst // info@thejasperlocal.com