With new Christmas skates to try out, children and young adults are flocking to the Alfond Arena in Orono, to Sawyer Arena in Bangor, or to the H.O. Bouchard Complex in Brewer, all quality ice rinks. But there was skating in Maine long before those arenas dedicated to hockey and figure skating were erected. I’m sure the winter pastime in Maine goes back to Colonial times.

I once interviewed elderly residents on French Island, which lies in the Penobscot River between Old Town and Milford, who were involved in a study to preserve the history of the French culture in that area. They told me that the river and ice skating helped forge a bond between the youths of Indian Island, the home of the Penobscot Nation, and the young people of French Island. The river, ice skating and hockey became common ground for the children of their day.

Throughout Maine, everyone has a memory of a favorite pond, river, lake or stream for ice skating. For me, there were two memorable places in the 1950s. The first was Chris’ Pond, named after Christopher Lawler of Southwest Harbor, who ran an ice-cutting operation there until he lost his icehouse in a fire in September 1947, just a month before the famed Bar Harbor Fire.

The other place was the Bangor Auditorium. The six kids in our family would come to Bangor during winter school vacations, get farmed out to various aunts and uncles, LaFlammes, Godfreys or Connors, and with our numerous cousins, we would head for an afternoon or night of indoor skating at the auditorium. Music played while people in casual clothes circled around the edges of the rink and girls in miniskirts did twirls and spins in the middle. Eventually, the indoor skating facility deteriorated, and for years, until the advent of Sawyer, Bangor was without such a rink.

Skating at Southwest Harbor in the 1950s was different. It was all snowsuits, long underwear, bulky jackets, mittens, and not a miniskirt in sight.

With no winter ice cutting, the pond belonged to the skaters. Most of the boys wore hockey skates, even if they didn’t play hockey, whereas the girls wore figure skates. There were games and traditions, I’m sure, like every other spot where skaters gathered.

At our place, Chris’ Pond, Red Rover was popular. The person designated “it” would skate to one end of the pond, and the rest of the kids would line up across the lake waiting to be called.

I’d always hang back, hoping not to be called. Then it would come. “Red Rover, Red Rover, send David over,” and I’d have to skate like my life depended on it to get to the other end of the pond before being tagged. The game would progress, with each tagged person joining the caller, and someone else would be called to run the gantlet of skaters. It could be terrifying and exciting to have 30 kids coming after you and still be able to get to the other end without being tagged, or so I’m told. I was always one of the first to be caught.

Then there was the whip. Everyone would line up, with the stronger skaters at the front and the weaker, smaller skaters, like me, on the end. Those at the front would skate faster and faster, then double back on the line, digging in their toes and bringing the front of the line to a halt. This caused the rest of the skaters to snap like a whip and accelerated the speed of those on the end, who usually flew off into the woods.

There was always a fire at the end of the pond. Often it was fueled by blowdowns and limbs from the forest floor surrounding the pond. More often, we would go down to Ralph Grindle’s gas station and grab a few discarded tires, a small jug of gasoline and head back. We’d pour the fuel into the tires then step back and throw matches into the tire until it finally exploded. We were fortunate that no one was ever seriously injured, just a few singes here and there. Every kid in town who skated there wore the distinct aroma of gasoline and burned rubber throughout the winter season.

I always found the best time to skate was when the last person left and you were all alone on the pond. I skated with the expertise of an Olympic star. The joys of selective memory. When no one was there to see, I was unstoppable – figure eights, skating backward (without ever falling), coming to a stop sideways with a spray of shaven ice flying out ahead of me. It would be so cold that you could hear the sap freezing in the trees and exploding like gunshots, echoing through the night. The ice would rumble and a crack would shoot across the thick surface. You couldn’t brag to others of how well you did, because that would destroy the magic of such a moment.

When it snowed, there was always someone’s father with a plow, or an army of kids to shovel the ice clear. Occasionally the Southwest Harbor Volunteer Fire Department would send a tanker down to flood the pond to restore its smoothness. For many years we skated only to the light of bonfires, but finally the town installed a streetlight that helped illuminate the area. The pond was sold, several times over, but it was always known to the youngsters in town as Chris’ Pond, even when one couple bought it and donated it to the town with the requirement that it be called Uncle Bill’s Pond. The name never really stuck, and to this day there are still those who call it Chris’ Pond.