A mild Ottawa winter left skaters hungry for more ice time as the Rideau Canal Skateway experienced its shortest skating season in history.
This year’s skating season lasted only 34 days, compared to 59 last year. It topped the previous record of a 35-day skating season in 2001.
The skateway closed for the last time this winter on Feb. 25.
“It was the shortest skating season in history so the length of the season as well as the skating days. It was a new record this year, not a great record,” said Jasmine Leduc, spokesperson for the National Capital Commission.
“We did have a lot of adverse weather conditions this season and that did have a negative impact on the ice and as a result we had frequent openings and closures,” she said.
Leduc added the number of visitors per skating day was average, but the canal only saw 330,000 visits during the whole season compared to an average of 900,000. The full length of the canal was only open for eight days.
Pino Di Ioia, CEO of BeaverTails, said the company saw a significant drop in revenues at their canal locations, but said their sales at the ByWard Market location doubled.
“When people are unable to go skating they revert to the ByWard Market,” he said. “It’s kind of like, the urge is there to have a pastry so they fill the urge at the next available place.”
Di Ioia said weather affecting business is not uncommon.
“We have years where the East Coast gets no snow at the ski hills and we have years where the amusement parks out west get rained out all the time and that’s just part of it,” he said. “It was an excellent year last year. It was bitterly cold, so people didn’t want to go out, but because of the bitter cold we had a long season so in the end they still went out.”
Becca Gray, a second-year social work student at Carleton University, said she was disappointed with the skating season.
“I was expecting a short season but I wasn’t expecting something as short as that,” she said. “The whole canal was open for just a few days really . . . but it was really disappointing.”
Gray added she visited Carleton’s Ice House to get her bi-weekly skating fix. She left her skates in her locker so she could go skating between classes.
“I know most people don’t like the cold weather but I love skating on the canal—it’s so much fun. It’s part of the Ottawa experience,” she said. “I really hope it’s a longer season next year so I can make up for this year.”
