A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS ABOUT EARLY SKATING

[FSWer]

Say,I was wondering...about the photos of early skating. Assuming those were real ponds that were once used to skate on...does anyone know if you can still go to them to skate? Also,we know that bone was attached to shoes in the old days as skates. But do we know what kind of bone? Assuming it was an animal. Does anyone know what animal bone was used?

 

[purple skates]

I looked on line, and Wikipedia says they used ox, horse or deer bones. That was a really really long time ago - I never knew they used anything oth er than metal!

 

[overedge]

@FSWer some of those photos and paintings are hundreds of years old, when there were no indoor arenas. So people didn't have anywhere else to skate except on ponds in the outdoors. But a lot could have happened to the land between then and now, so the ponds might not even exist any more.

The ice also might not be a pond - it might be ice that was made specially for skating, like flooding part of a yard or a park with water and letting the water freeze. I used to live in an apartment building where the basketball court would be flooded with water in the winter to make an ice surface for skating.

 

[Yazmeen]

Yes, outdoor skating can be done. I have a friend who takes his daughters when a local lake freezes over - the park system there hangs a certain flag out on the days when the ice is safe for skating during the winter.

 

[FSWer]

I looked on line, and Wikipedia says they used ox, horse or deer bones. That was a really really long time ago - I never knew they used anything oth er than metal!

COOL