Skating PDF Print E-mail
Written by Ber van de Rijdt   
It happen when real cold weather hits the Netherlands: the Dutch go crazy... They put their skates on and go on the ice. But first they make sure that the irons are sharp. But then they go.

Skating

Whether the ice is thick or not does not matter, they whirl and glide on mirror smooth lakes, on ditches and anywhere they can skate. And they go for long trips. They do not care if they are out of practice, they simply have to go.
A great many accidents happen as many go straight from their couch on the ice. This year most children under 12 never had seen ice in their lifetime, so for most of them it was the first time. Skating is learnt by stumbling and getting up again.

Hendrik Avercamp

No one knows where this madness originated. Skating Dutchmen are seen from early times onward. In the famous Golden Age skating, ice hockey and shuffling persons were subjects much in demand on paintings. Especially Hendrik Avercamp became famous for them. His paintings were so well known that still most Dutch know them as they have been printed on biscuit jars that all mothers bought. Havercamp painted very exactly what he saw so that his paintings have become a valuable  source of information for historians and cultural information of the 17th century. You can see what the fashion of the day was for men as well as for women. And what the houses looked like and what the common and poor Dutchmen looked like because the young and theold, the rich and the poor all went skating on the same frozen waters. One can see what games were played on the ice and how some lost a tooth or took a blood nose or worse on the ice when they fell. Tradesmen can be seen. Nowadays they sell pea soup or hot sausages. What was then sold must be guessed mostly.

Centuries before this era Roman soldiers reported, from what now are the Netherlands, that they had seen people walk on water with cow bones or horse jaws tied to their feet. In Italy no one ever believed these stories. The skating on horse jaws was practised for a long time. These were the skates of the early Dutch.
Skating is also done in other countries. During championship races participants from all over the world are seen. But only in the Netherlands it has become a Folks sport; in no other country there are such fanatics. And no other country produced as many champions on the ice. Be it sprinters or stayers, many European-, World- and Olympic- titles have been earned. In earlier times for sport or small prices but today good money can be earned on the ice.

The 'Elfstedentocht", Eleven Towns Tour.

The most fanatic skaters go straight from the skate rinks to natural ice so they can practise for the match of all matches: a 200 kilometers long skating marathon past 11 towns with age old town rights in the northern province of Friesland: Leeuwarden, Sneek, IJlst, Sloten, Stavoren, Hindeloopen, Workum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker, Dokkum and back to Leeuwarden.
Those who have won this race, (fullfilling the trip is sometimes already a heroic performance) earn the status of Real Dutch Hero. They will be written about for years to come and many try all their lives, searching for fame.
Even the future king, Prince Willem Alexander, made the Eleven Towns Tour. In 1984 he was one of the nameless thousands toiling past all these towns. The participants start very early, barely past midnight and nobody noticed the prince in the dark. But when day came and the media noticed him (he skated using a fantasy pen name), the burden became extra heavy for him. He had to struggle on amidst a crowd of paparazzi for a great many kilometers. But he finished on raw willpower. At the finish he was awaited by his mother proud The Queen and his father Prince Claus. He earned the prized Eleven Towns Cross, so he also is a Real Dutch Heroes.