Euro Notes: Dutch Skating Pandemonium as Canals Freeze

Ice Landscape by Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634)

Oil on canvas; Staatliches Museum Schwerin

The canals freeze in the Netherlands, and the Dutch are flocking out there.  The result is ice skating pandemonium, though folks seem to be having fun (see the cool news photo of skaters, canals, and the iconic windmills).  Blurb:

NIEUWERKERK AAN DEN IJSSEL, Netherlands: For the first time in 12 years, the Netherlands' canals froze this month, bringing the Dutch, who like their tulips in neat rows, a heady mix of pandemonium and euphoria.

Hundreds of thousands of skaters, their cheeks as red as apples in the freezing temperatures, took to the ice, and hospital wards were filled with dozens of people with fractured arms, sprained ankles and broken legs.

Train engineers were ordered to go slowly to avoid hitting skaters who clambered across railway tracks to get from one frozen canal to another. Even the minister of defense, an avid skater, fell and broke his wrist. His ministry announced that the national defense remained in safe hands, even if one of them was in a cast.

OK, I'm now waiting for some nanny government bureaucrat to ban ice skating for being a health hazard.

PS: Now go read the classic 19th-century children's tale of Hans Brinker.  Also, check out how important ice skating is to Dutch culture and take a peek at the lovely winter landscapes of various Dutch masters, such as Amsterdam-born Hendrick Avercamp.  If you're crazy-athletic, you can look at the grueling Dutch ice skating marathon known as the Elfstedentoch (skate 200 kilometers through 11 cities in 1 day with 16,000 other crazy enthusiasts!).