Ice photos on nordic skates and kicksled, winter 2005-2006

Ice photos on kicksled (spark) and touring skates, winter 2005-2006

Christmas season 2005 in Alberta has its own page: Ice photos from Alberta
Jan 13 2006, Silver Lake, Lakeville Nova Scotia Lat 45-07'N, Long 64-36'W
Silver Lake is a very small lake, only 600 m around. But today it had the highest number of nordic skaters in Nova Scotia. Eric had bought new Lundhags skates, and Elisabet (from Hjo, Sweden) tried my extra pair. Is this the Lakeville Långfärdsskridsko Klubb?
Feb 11 2006. Little Lake, Greenfield NS
It is has been a very poor ice and snow year. It was the warmest January in 100 years and many lakes had open water in late January! Today we were skiing and came to this very small lake. It only takes seconds to switch from skis to skate blades so I tried skating in about 5 cm of snow.
- Ski and skate tracks on Little Lake
Feb 19 2006 Lake Charles, Shubie Park, Dartmouth, NS 44-43'N 63-33'W
Finally, some good ice! It was cold and windy but we had blue sky, sunshine and beautiful ice on this urban lake in Dartmouth.
Parts of the Shubenacadie Canal through Shubie Park are also passable. With minor portaging around the canal locks and open water it is possible to continue to Lake Micmac.
- Feb 19 2006, Lake Charles, Dartmouth, NS
- Feb 19 2006, skating on Lake Charles, Dartmouth
- Feb 19 2006, Lesley skating on Lake Charles, Dartmouth
- Feb 19 2006, Lesley's blades on Lake Charles, Dartmouth Nordic skates slide smoothly over slightly bumpy ice.
- Feb 19 2006, Shubenacadie Canal, Dartmouth
Mar 05 2006, Porters Lake and Lake Charles, NS
Lakes near Wolfville had 5 cm of snow, so I drove to Halifax and we checked out these lakes near Dartmouth.
Porters Lake (44-39'N 63-19'W) is connected to the ocean by a narrow channel at Lawrencetown Beach and thus is slightly salty and has a small tide. It is probably the only place in the world where you see people ice skating, ice sailing or kicksledding on one side of the highway and people surf boarding on the other! There was an open "roak" across the southern cove, which we crossed at the far shore. There were also strips of open water in the narrow, shallow sounds between islands.
Then we moved to Lake Charles. The ice was skatable, so we skated a 8 or 10 km loop around the lake, towing the sleds.
- Mar 5 2006, old pack ice blown into woods, Porters Lake NS
- Mar 5 2006, old pack ice, Porters Lake NS
- Mar 5 2006, open "roak", Porters lake, NS
- Mar 5 2006, Lesley skating and towing sled,Lake Charles, NS
- Mar 5 2006, David towing sled, Lake Charles, NS
- Mar 5 2006, skating, Lake Charles, NS
  On Mar 7 I also checked out Grand Lake (44-54'N 63-36'W), the largest lake in the Shubenacadie River system. There was considerable snow at both ends, but mostly bare ice in the middle.
- Mar 7 2006, "up-roak" (pressure ridge), Shubenacadie Grand Lake, NS
Mar 8-9 2006,Gaspereau Lake (44-59'N 64-32W) and Black River Lake (44-58'N 64-23'W) NS
These lakes near Wolfville had too much snow for skating but the skiing was excellent. In a few days maybe there will be excellent skating and kicksledding conditions.
Mar 12 2006,Gaspereau Lake, Lesley (from Halifax) and David (from Wolfville)
The rain and mild weather Mar 10 and 11 did melt most of the snow, but the temperature didn't go much below freezing, so there areas of wet slush, over-ice and water puddles. There were a few skatable sections, but most areas were very good for the kicksleds. We saw at least 4 eagles, plus hundreds of gulls.
Mar 19 2006,Gaspereau Lake, Lesley (from Halifax) and David (from Wolfville)
Colder weather and only a little snow in the last week made some excellent ice. We cruised around the main part of the lake on kicksleds. Unfortunatly, it looked like a blizzard was coming, so we cut the trip short before we had a chance to skate on the wonderful ice.
- Mar 19 2006, more "skerries", Gaspereau Lake NS (reminds one of "Group of Seven" paintings)
- Mar 19 2006, balanced rock, Gaspereau Lake
- 2002, view of same rock from other side several years ago
- Mar 19 2006, rocks in middle of Gaspereau Lake
  Update- Mar20, Gaspereau Lake. The "blizzard" that evening was only about 2 cm of snow, but enough to hide the bumps and weak spots. There were also gale force winds and drifting snow, but I skated about 15 km on Gaspereau Lake and Black River Lake,
- Mar 20 2006, skate and tracks in snow, Gaspereau Lake
Mar 21 2006, Five Mile Lake ,44-54'N 63-56'W
Five Mile Lake is a nice wild lake between Windsor and Halifax. It is 10 km long but only averages 1 km wide and has numerous islands and skerries. The ice was great for both kicksledding and skating. I went 23 km on the kicksled and skated 18 km.
Mar 26 2006, Lake George ,44-56'N 64-42'W
Lake George is a medium size lake, but a shoreline trip around all the coves comes to about 9 km. It is one of the highset elevation lakes in mainland Nova Scotia (elev 220 m) so has a good ice early and late in the season. The ice was a bit too soft today for skating but we had a nice tour on kicksleds, probably the last ice of the season.
- Mar 26 2006, Lake George, Nova Scotia granite
- Mar 26 2006, Lake George,Lesley by beaver house
- Mar 26 2006, Lake George, pitcher plant on boggy shore
- Mar 26 2006, Lake George, bigfoot's tracks! pole is 140 cm long so footprints are about 200 cm apart!

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David Dermott (dermott@ns.sympatico.ca)
Wolfville Ridge , Nova Scotia, Canada