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Skating in the Netherlands The Netherlands is a small country of ten million people, but it boasts a quarter of a million competitive speedskaters, and millions more who skate for fun. What's the story? Natural ice in the Netherlands is a rare occurrence. In fact, some winters there's no natural ice at all. Maybe that explains why the Dutch love to skate outdoors. They hardly ever get the chance! But when a cold wave hits, and the interconnected maze of canals, rivers and lakes freeze over, it's a spontaneous celebration, a national holiday. Businesses close their doors and everyone goes skating. According to Richard van Ammerzoden, a skater from Rotterdam, skating in Holland originated as a poor man's sport. Isolated by mud and water in the damp winters, rural farmers prayed for ice. When it came, just like Hans Brinker, they strapped on their wooden skates with leather thongs, and traveled great distances to visit friends and relatives they hadn't seen in months. Then they skated home. Perhaps that explains the origin of the Elfstedentocht or "Eleven Cities Tour", a 200-kilometer mega-tour in the province of Friesland known as "the mother of all skating tours." In the 1890s, some Frisian farmer with well-developed leg muscles tried to skate through all eleven cities of Friesland in a single day. He succeeded, and the rest is history. The first official Elfstedentocht was held in 1906, but the event has changed a bit. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. Every winter without ice just adds to the anticipation. When cold air descends on Friesland and ice covers the canals, the preparations begin. The first volunteers to mobilize are the "ice transplanters." They shovel up truckloads of ice chunks and dump them into the canals in the trouble spots where the ice is slow to form. The Vereniging De Friesche Elf Steden meets and chooses a tour date. Usually it's only 48 hours in advance. But the word gets out fast, and that's when the mass hysteria really kicks in. Roads are closed. Fences go up. The "kluunplaatsen," detours around low bridges or thin ice, are paved with sheets of plywood and strips of second-hand carpet. Portable refreshment stands and checkpoint booths are dragged out onto the ice. Television crews start filing their live reports. The night before the tour, trains run all night into Leeuwarden carrying 16,000 lucky skaters, who are either members of the Vereniging, or were chosen in a lottery where the chances of success are 1 in 100. The starting gun goes off in the pitch dark at 5:30 AM for the professional racers. With skate guards covering their blades, the racers run about a kilometer from the center of town to the beginning of the canal. Then they rip off their skate guards, and off they go. Amateurs follow in groups of a thousand every fifteen minutes, over a period of four solid hours. Hundreds of thousands of spectators line the route shouting encouragement, and millions more watch the continuous live television coverage from the comfort of their living rooms. Two years ago, a famous bridge over the canal in Bartlehiem almost collapsed from the weight of all the spectators. The bridge has since been reinforced, but on the next Elfstedentocht, spectator access will be strictly controlled by the police. Usually, cold temperatures in Friesland are accompanied by a biting north or northeast wind blowing off the North Sea. 1997 was no exception. The Elfstedentocht route, when you draw it on a map, looks like an upside-down lollipop on a very short stick. The first 70 kilometers toward the southwest are all downwind, and they pass by in a flash while dawn is breaking, the sun is rising, and everyone is fresh and full of energy. Passing through IJlst, Sneek and Sloten, you collect checkpoint stamps on your official tourcard like they're going out of style. When you reach Stavoren, you skirt its picturesque harbor opening out onto the North Sea. Then comes the killer -- 100 kilometers straight into the wind, clawing your way northeast through Hindeloopen, Workum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker and Bartlehiem all the way to Dokkum. Your speed drops by half as you desperately search for a long draft line of skaters taking turns leading the fight against the ruthless headwind. Toward the end of this stretch, the sun sets, it gets very dark and you'd better turn on your headlamp so you can see the bumps, cracks and rough spots chewed up by the passage of thousands of skate blades that preceded you. Now you really need those spectators cheering you on, even if you're not exactly sure what they're yelling at you in Dutch or in the Frisian dialect. When you finally reach Dokkum, you know you'll be able to finish before the midnight deadline. It's only 30 kilometers to Leeuwarden, and they're all downwind! Passing again under the bridge in Bartlehiem, you take a left this time onto the Bonkefeart canal. Just keep your euphoria under control, and don't fall and hurt yourself. In Leeuwarden, you climb triumphantly off the ice and walk to the farmers' hall, where you present your tourcard full of checkpoint stamps and collect your very own Elfstedentocht cross, a flimsy little piece of brass-plated tin that you'll wear proudly around your neck for the rest of your life! Of all the Dutch tours, only the Elfstedentocht and Elfmerentocht (Eleven Lakes Tour) in Friesland require pre-registration. For the other tours, all you need to do is show up at the appointed time and place, pay your entry fee and get your tourcard. The easiest way to find out when and where to go is to consult NOS-teletekst. Even the shortest tours of 15 or 20 kilometers will reward you with a medal. Outside of Friesland, the provinces of North and South Holland offer the most tours. These provinces encompass the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and the legendary polders which are huge tracts of land reclaimed from the sea, protected by dikes and pumping stations. In these polders, most of the land is below sea level, and the canals you skate on are actually elevated above the surrounding farm fields, offering expansive views of rows of windmills and distant church steeples. Two scenic tours outside Rotterdam are the Molentocht Alblasserwaard and the Negendorpentocht Krimpenerwaard. The Alblasserwaard tour starts in the town of Kinderdijk, a tourist mecca famous for its windmills. (Molentocht means windmill tour.) The Krimpenerwaard is one of the oldest polders in Holland, dotted with ancient villages, and you can skate through nine of them in a day. (Negendorpentocht means Nine Villages Tour.) You can read about the area's history in this Krimpenerwaard site. Aside from the scenery, the joys of Dutch skating are the companionship of other skaters, and the delicious food served up along the canals. With so many skaters on the ice, you're guaranteed to find someone who skates at your speed, and gets hungry or thirsty with the same regularity. Don't bother to carry a lot of food with you. You'll find lots of gourmet treats along the way at every koek en zopie (refreshment stand). Among the delights are gevulde koek (butter cookies) and hot chocolate. You might even find warmeworst (sausage) with zuurkool (sauerkraut) or boerenkool (coleslaw?). And don't forget the Dutch staple, pea soup, which is called "erwtensoep" in Holland and "snert" in the dialect of Friesland. Snert has the reputation of inducing uncontrollable flatulence in all who consume it. Coincidentally, the Frisian name for Sloten, "Sleat," rhymes with Bonkefeart, the canal leading to the Elfstedentocht finish line in Leeuwarden. Such is the reputation of snert that two winters ago, Elfstedentocht skaters passing through Sloten saw a giant billboard showing a skater with a jet-propulsion pack attached to his rear end, and reading, "Nei ien board snert út Sleat knalle jo sa nei de Bonkefeart." ("After a cup of snert from Sloten, you'll break wind so explosively that before you know it you'll be on the Bonkefeart." Perhaps the billboard is still there! If you skate a Dutch tour, make sure you dress warm, with lots of layers, at least one of them windproof. You'll be facing many solid hours of windchill. A nylon/lycra "racing suit" worn over one or two layers of polypropylene underwear works great. A balaclava is indispensable, as are a hat and mittens or gloves. For men, I recommend a pair of windbriefs to protect your private parts from frostbite! And you'll need either skate guards or clip-on Swedish skate blades to get you safely across the kluunplaatsen. Thanks to Johan Grootveld, Arjen Meurs and Johan Porsby for some of the material on this page. Comments? jamie@nordicskater.com |