For the love of skating. And family.

By Aly Winks

Every year in the late fall or early winter, Web Developer Analyst Michael Boquist heads into his backyard. He spends hours lovingly leveling a space of about 20 feet by 12 feet in the yard of his acreage. After that, he hauls out cedar boards and takes an enormous piece of plastic to cover the space he has leveled. He uses the boards to make a border around the plastic. With the help of the rain and his hose, he covers the plastic to several inches deep of water. Then, he waits and hopes.

It is start of a process in building a custom skating rink for his family.

“I have always loved it when the lakes freeze and people can skate on them. I was at my brother’s one winter, he lives close to me, and he’d built a rink. I remember thinking ‘I’m going to do this one year soon’.”

“Soon” came four winters ago when the stars aligned and he decided it was time. 

“It’s a process of experimentation. I am constantly trying to find ways to make the water freeze faster and stay frozen longer. Right now, the method that is working is a thin layer of water, let that freeze, add another thin layer,” he explains.

Too much water though, and the bottom layer of ice floats to the top and everything melts.

“Vancouver Island is not the place for a skating rink. I think that is a little bit part of the reason I do it – for the challenge.”

A challenge for two to five days a winter of skating.

So, what is the rest of the reason he does it?

Two enthusiastic young voices quickly answer that question – his daughters, Ava and Anna brim with joy when asked about rink.

“We LOVE it. It is so much fun,” says Anna (the older one).

“Some of my friends don’t believe I have a skating rink in my yard,” says Ava.

They list off some favourite games and activities.

“We play a game where we hold hands and swing each other around – it’s a mellower version of ‘whip it’,” Anna says. “Sometimes we play hockey, we try different ways to skate.”

Ava notes that it can be bumpy sometimes, to which Boquist replies that it is true, they do not own a Zamboni. Anna laughs and calls it cross-country skating.

Anna shares a story about the last time they got to skate.

“It was just before Christmas and we put up Christmas lights and lights in bags all around it. We could skate at night and it was so fun,” she says.

The recent snow marked the first time the Boquist family might be able to skate during two separate storms in one winter.

“We’ve been out clearing off the snow. We need the cold air to get to water and freeze it. Snow acts as an insulator and since it is just on dirt beneath the plastic, it can even start the melting process,” Boquist explains.

However, he shows photos of two eager helpers with snow shovels.

“We might get lucky here soon,” he says.

A little of traditional Canadian winter here on temperate Vancouver Island. And who knows, maybe more than five days of skating this winter.