It must have looked like some strange ritual to our neighbors as my dad, me, and a couple of my brothers stood in a semi-circle on the side of our house in sub-zero temperatures. It was late November in Minnesota, and in those days, during the mid-60s, the ground would already be frozen. My dad, holding a rolled-up section of the Star & Tribune newspaper, had lit one end on fire, and was now holding the flames underneath the water spigot sticking out the side of our house. The smell of the burning paper and the hissing and sputtering of the spigot before water flowed freely, signaled it was time to prepare our backyard ice rink for the upcoming winter season.

Growing up in the north, I never thought it strange that as winter approached, we flooded our backyard to create an ice rink. Now, as an adult living in the south, it seems like a foreign concept when explaining the process to someone.

Our yard nearly perfect for the endeavor had a flat dirt surface measuring approximately 50 feet by 20 feet. The dirt lot, located at the very back part of our yard was a six-foot drop in elevation from the upper yard wherein the summer grass grew thick and green. As long as I can remember, I never saw grass grow on the dirt area, though. The hill from the upper yard formed a natural barrier for the near side of the rink, and on the right side, a retaining wall created another barrier for containing water on that side. The far end of the yard had a fence, and beyond the fence, there was a straight drop of three to four feet into the back neighbor’s yard. The left side was also fenced, with a more severe drop of over 10 feet. The two fenced areas had a slight incline of elevation to meet the top of the two retaining walls and completed the bowl effect that held the water inside the yard until it froze.

Creating the rink isn’t as simple as letting water flow from a garden hose to flood the space. The creation of a useable skating surface took multiple floodings to build up the ice in thin layers, cover any high spots, and create useable ice for the entire space. Subsequent resurfacing during the season smoothed the ice from the cuts caused by the skate blades, much the same as a Zamboni machine does for professional hockey teams. By the end of the season, it was not unusual to have ice four to six inches thick.

The rink was a magical place at night when skating under the stars, or In the daytime, with the blinding brightness of the sun reflecting off the snow. Each time there was a new snowfall, the ice needed clearing, and often the wide aluminum shovels were pushed across the ice while we were wearing skates. Sometimes it would snow while skating, and the swirling flakes added another level of beauty to the wintery scene. On especially snowy winters, the snow piled up from clearing the ice could reach a height of six feet or more. The large amount of snow provided an additional opportunity to build snow caves along the embankment.

There was no lack of places for a skating enthusiast to go in those days. In Minneapolis, nearly every city park built a hockey rink and flooded larger areas for recreational skaters. The chain of lakes within the city would also get in on the action by putting up warming houses on the rinks they created when shoveling off a portion of the lake ice. It is an exhilarating experience skating on lake ice with the open expanses and the natural beauty of your surroundings.

It was always sad to see the ice breaking up at the end of the season, as the warm March winds signaled spring. Usually, our backyard rink would get a layer of water on top of the ice, rendering the rink unusable. Soon after, cracks formed, and the large thick sheet would start to break apart. Once it broke apart, melted water became trapped beneath the ice sheet. I remember one year during this time where I was able to stand on a large sheet of ice and with a broken hockey stick pushing into the ground, moved the ice across the yard like an ice raft.

As the water finally drains from the former ice rink, the old dirt lot reappears with a sticky surface of mud. Soon after, the heat of summer turns the dirt lot back into a barren area, holding no resemblance to the winter wonderland; it is transformed into each winter as the cold winds of November began to blow.