The village of Portland, about an hour northeast of Kingston, is gearing up for its biggest weekend of the year. The 15th annual “Skate the Lake” begins on Saturday.
The Big Rideau Lake and a big oval track are the setting for the two-day event. This year’s edition is a special one as between 60 and 80 speedskaters from the Netherlands will be on hand.
“They’re an impressive bunch, skating 100 kilometres in a day is really not a big deal,” said John Bongers, the president of Portland Outdoors. “They’re going to be doing that four or five times in 10 days.
“They regularly skate every winter 200-kilometre races, 200-kilometre-plus races, so to skate 200 kilometres for them in a day is no big deal — 100 kilometres is more than a warm-up but it’s also not going to wear them out,” he said.
All involved agree that if it wasn’t for volunteers, the event wouldn’t work. Dozens of people give freely of their time including Connie Scott. She and a handful of others were preparing “skatetails,” a sweet treat that tends to sell out every year.
“A skatetail is made out of a sweet basic dough recipe — it’s a secret recipe. We shape it in the shape of an oval. We fry it, and serve it with several different toppings, anything from cinnamon sugar to our good old local Canadian maple syrup.
Saturday is all about the Dutch skaters, while on Sunday, the track belongs to local skaters.
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