The ice skate is believed to have been invented circa 3000 B.C.E. in Finland. For many years scientists were not sure where exactly the skate originated, ancient models havina been found throughout Scandinavia as well as Russia. However, in 2008 news emerged that people living in what is now southern Finland would have benefited the most from skating on the crude blades. This country's nickname, "the land of the thousand lakes," is an understatement as it boasts no fewer than 187,888 of them. Finland is also a cold land and therefore each winter its thousands of frozen lakes have presented serious transportation problems for the population. With neighboring villages often separated by lakes, and rowboats locked up until spring, the options were to try to navigate around the frozen water or find a way to negotiate the slippery surfaces.
The first skates consisted of the leg bones of large animals. Holes were drilled at the ends of the bones and strips of leather threaded through to tie the skates to the feet. As in skiing, skaters used thin poles to propel themselves along, and it was only with the arrival of iron runners in fourteenth-century Holland that the poles were dispensed with.
In an inadvertent homage to the skate's origins on their country's lakes, students in the Finnish city of Jyvaskyla still commute to their classes by donning skates to traverse the lake that divides the city. The evolution of the skate has seen metal attached to wood and metal attached to metal, but 'the fundamental fact that keeping your balance enables you to glide almost effortlessly across slippery ice has ensured the skate's continued popularity.
