Skating in the New World

This chapter discusses the development of skating in the New World. There is much evidence of skating activity throughout the Colonies in the years before the American Revolution. It was a recreational activity, with racing being especially popular, but as a discipline little is known about it. Bone skates as a practical solution for travel across frozen landscapes were discovered independently in various parts of the world. French trappers who worked in eastern North America learned from the Iroquois Indians the practice of tying bones to their feet to traverse frozen rivers. Thus, in North America as in Europe and Asia, skating on bones must have existed for thousands of years. Bladed skates, however, were probably unknown in the New World before the eighteenth century, perhaps introduced by British officers stationed in Nova Scotia following its seizure from the French in 1713. By the mid-eighteenth century, skating was practiced along the East Coast whenever ice was available. Philadelphia became skating's first important center and could boast of competent figure skaters.