BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Alaska Alaska to Canada and back

OK, please bear with me. I'm trying to assist a fellow editor with a link-posting issue - and the only way I can figure out how to see if what I was going to suggest to her to try was going to work is by trying it here myself. :)

So, I am posting a link to a WONDERFUL article on ice skating in Canada (perfect for this time of year!), which you can go read on the Canadian Culture site. IF the link comes up in a blue "clickable" link, I'll let her know how I did it. If it comes up looking like gibberish (regular HTML code), then it didn't work and no harm done, right?

So, here is the link: Skating the Canal

Of course, NOW I want to go ice-skating!! :) There are plenty of places here in Alaska to ice-skate, too. One of my favorites (or used to be, before I got old enough to start worrying about falling and breaking something) is Westchester Lagoon in Anchorage! Westchester Lagoon is an approximately 50-acre natural lake that feeds out into Cook Inlet. In the winter, the municipality of Anchorage clears and hot-mops a wide, 1/4 mile long pathway winding around several little islands in the lagoon, making for a fun and uniquely beautiful skating arena. They keep this area maintained all winter, beginning as soon as the ice is at least 12" thick and even offer lighting for night skating. When surface conditions cooperate, it's sometimes possible to skate almost everywhere on the entire lagoon!

Sometimes the muni will also clear and mop large sections where you can often find local kids putting together fun, casual hockey skirmishes out of the way of other skaters. There is no charge for skating on Westchester Lagoon - it's a great opportunity for family fun in downtown Anchorage!