Thanksgiving weekend the place to be was Portage Lake. The cold temps and no recent snow had created the world's most scenic ice rink. Not wanting to miss out, I went to AMH and bought myself a pair of nordic skate blades and then Linda and I headed for

There were hundreds of people down at Portage every day this weekend. It was a pretty cool scene. Here I am borrowing another picture, this one from Rob Whitney of a hockey game on Thanksgiving Day. As Rob said, its real-life Mystery, Alaska!

By Sunday, my ice skating appetite had been whet, so Tim Kelley and I headed north to Nancy Lakes. We skied a couple miles in to the lakes, then stashed the skis and pulled out the blades. All of these photos are by Tim.

There was an inch or two of surface hoar in most places, but the skating was still pretty good. That's me under all those clothes. It was about -16 F when we started.

We managed to cover the canoe loop trail, plus a little extra, in under two hours. The loop itself was probably about an hour. And man, the portages are much easier when you are carrying skates rather than canoes. I'll take -16 over man-eating mosquitoe

Tim shows off our not-so-secret weapon.