(This winter)? I ask because I was looking at some reproductions of old dutch paintings from the 1600’s-they show people skating on the frozen canals(and very wintry looking scenes). can you skate on the canals (in a typical Dtch winter) these days?
I’m not Dutch, but have spent some time in The Netherlands which included at least a few days of winter. Holland is remarkably temperate today. When the temperature approaches the freezing point of water, everyone complains about how cold it is. I don’t recall it ever being below freezing when I was there. The canals seem to be liquid all year round. This was source of great disappointment to me – I also wanted to skate on the canals.
The 1600’s was the period of the Little Ice Age. Temperatures in Europe were significantly colder than they are now. This is also why we picture Christmas in a snow-covered London. It very, very rarely snows in London now.
I have personally skated on Dutch canals.
Well, don’t leave us hanging! Tell us more!!
I, also, have skated on Dutch canals. Since I suck at skating, it was a less than exhilarating experience. Every time.
For a more athletic approach to all this, check out this endurance feat/big ass party
I lived in the suburbs of Amsterdam as a child and, rarely, the canal outside my apartment building would freeze for a few days. The building has since been torn down. This is the exact location: 52°18’40.52"N 4°58’41.43"E (I love Google Earth). I doubt the canals in downtown Amsterdam freeze very often at all.
By interesting coincidence, the Vinyl Cafe this week was about Dave taking Morely to Holland to skate on the canals. CBC Podcasts
for details. US dopers may not be familiar with this, but it’s one of the most popular regular features on CBC radio, and a major cultural connection with people in different parts of the country.
I’ve never had a chance to skate the canals in Holland, but I worked for a month in Ottawa, and my apartment was about 2 blocks from the canal. Absolute heaven! I’d skate the full length, about 7 km, to Carlton U and back at least once a day, and skating at night is a fabulous experience, especially once one is upstream of Bronson, where there are almost no streetlights over the canal. A bottle of white wine in the backpack (or whatever other bevvy one likes cold) is also highly recommended. I could almost have moved there for that alone…
My guess is that the Dutch won’t be doing much canal skating.What a pity-those paintings (ca 1600s) were really cool-women, children-all skting around!
Hey, not far from my cousin’s apartment! Cool.
The 16-th century paintings of skating Dutch were made during the “Kleine IJstijd" (” Small Ice Age") a period lasting from the 15’th to the 19 th century. Average temperature worldwide was 1,5 degrees lower then it was in the period 1900-1960, and Western Europe was even 0,5 degrees colder then that.
As said upthread, every year it’s a toss-up if the Netherlands will see a couple of days where skating on “nature ice” is possible, or if the skaters have to skip the year again and substitute it with inline skating on our long flat straight roads.
This year hasn’t seen skating yet, but it still might. I have heard that more and more skating clubs (every village has one, their job is to set a track when the canals have frozen, or to flood a meadow for safe skating by kids) ) think about buying or renting artificial skating grounds. Usable summer and winter and made of solid polyethylene, they have about 85 % of the skating properties of ice.
Really? Small world!