Skating on the Canal

One Story A Day (Book 12 for December)

1 Skating on the Canal One year, after our New Year's Eve family feast, we all made plans to do something special in the coming year. Dad had a really good one. He was going to learn ice skate, and he would begin first thing in the morning. He said that it was his dream for many years. There is a canal in our city. A canal is a man-made river where boats travel in summer. But in winter, it freezes over and becomes a wonderful outdoor skating rink. When Dad immigrated to Ottawa, he walked on the canal every winter and watched people, young and old, skate. He wondered how people were able to stand on the narrow metal skates on a slippery ice surface. He never thought he would learn to skate himself. He thought he was too old and might break a bone if he fell. But that New Year's Day, Dad took the whole family to the canal.

We helped him put on his skates. I showed him how to stand on the ice. My sister told him to keep his body low in case he fell. Dad learned like a young student, listening carefully to our instructions. Watching him walking like a toddler, my sister and I laughed. After the first ten minutes, Dad could stand on his skates. Thirty minutes later, he began to move across the ice slowly. We spent the rest of the day on the canal, having fun watching Dad skate. At the end of the day he could skate, but mostly on his left foot. He pushed himself forward with his right foot, gliding on his left foot through the fast-moving crowd of skaters. From that day on, Dad went skating more often than anyone else in our family. For the first few weeks, he could only glide on the one foot-a funny skating style that made us laugh. By the time the mid-winter festival began, he had become a stable skater. Now, we spend a lot of time skating on the canal together. It's a fun memory for our family.