It’s been an unusual winter so far this year, which has meant a late start to skiing and outdoor ice skating seasons. But in the last week, some more seasonally cold days have made it possible for town staff to get to work on creating the Dorchester outdoor rink on School Street.
“It’s one of those things that’s very weather dependent,” says Tantramar Active Living Coordinator Matt Pryde. “It’s a very long process, you have to kind of just drizzle the the water on as you go, get a freeze, and then drizzle a little bit more. So it’s not a matter of just running a hose,” says Pryde.
Pryde says parks staff have invested hours in the process, and he hopes that the cold snap this week will mean the rink can open this weekend.
The rink has been the focus of some improvements this year through Tantramar’s parks and recreation department. So far, Pryde says the old surface of the rink was dug out and replaced with gravel and crusher dust. The new surface could serve as a good base for a future pad, says Pryde.
“The way things are going climate wise,” says Pryde, “it’s kind of expected that eventually we’ll have to lay a pad down there with artificial ice and a plant.”
Parks staff also repaired a number of boards around the rink, with more improvements to come. “We’ve actually ordered all new boards with the yellow kickplate that goes along the bottom,” says Pryde, but those won’t be installed until spring. “The other piece is there’s going to be a new building built there in the spring for the Zamboni,” says Pryde. The current building has a too-short doorway, which causes issues getting the Zamboni in and out.
“It’s a bit of a safety issue,” says Pryde. “The guys on the Zamboni really have to bend over quite far to get out of the building. And if you’re tall like myself, you can’t even do that.”
The new building will feature a higher door, and may even hold a newer Zamboni. The Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre is due for an electric replacement of its Zamboni next year, and Pryde says the current Civic Centre machine will likely go to Dorchester’s outdoor rink.
“The current building will remain and will still get used,” says Pryde. “We’ll still have the washroom and the change room in there.”
Pryde says the creation of the outdoor rink this year has been a learning process for Tantramar staff. “It’s our first year doing it. The former Dorchester staff have been really helpful, giving our guys advice,” says Pryde. “I know people have been asking since before Christmas, but just the way the weather has been up and down, and there’s been rain and snow and all kinds of messy stuff, that was just not possible. We have as much done as we possibly could.”
The warming climate does not bode well for the future of outdoor skating in Dorchester, or anywhere on Canada’s east coast. In their 2022-23 annual report, the citizen science group Rinkwatch published a map showing projections of winters in 2050, and where they will still be cold enough to sustain reliable outdoor skating. Atlantic Canada, the report predicts, “will see winter temperatures more like those of New York/New Jersey, where rinks are built opportunistically during unusually cold periods.”
