Boulder Junction skating ribbon offers a scenic skate in the Northwoods

A newly opened trail at a Northwoods park gives visitors the opportunity to ice skate through snowy woods. 

The 0.8-mile ice skating ribbon at Boulder Junction’s Winter Park opened on Dec. 23. Modeled after a wooded skating trail at Canada’s Arrowhead Provincial Park, skaters can glide through the scenery on what had been a little-used cross-country skiing path. Organizers behind the project say they believe it’s the first rural skating ribbon in Wisconsin.

On a weekday morning in early December, volunteers were just beginning to lay down the ice for the trail, which the park’s board has branded The Glide. This is accomplished by filling a 500-gallon water tank, opening it and using a truck to pull it slowly around the loop while allowing the water to drip out behind it.

Dennis Duke, a local hotel owner and member of the Boulder Junction Park Board, said they’ll repeat that process 150 times to get 3 inches of ice on the whole trail. They finished the process with a Zamboni that will smooth and groom the trail’s ice.

“This is so pretty in the wintertime, with the snow on the trees,” said Duke on one of the laps around the trail. “It looks like you’re out in the wilderness.”

In February 2023, local artist Henry Royer, a member of the park board, saw some videos online of Canadian skating trails.

“I said, Boulder Junction has to have this,” Royer said.

With fellow board member Steve Weber, they worked with Canadian parks officials to learn how to make the idea a reality. The Vilas County town’s parks crew groomed the trail and put up solar-powered lights that will illuminate the way on winter nights. A $5,000 grant from the Boulder Junction Community Foundation allowed them to purchase the Zamboni they used to finish the ice and which will keep it reasonably clear after a snow.

Even before the winter season, interest in the trail began to spread when the foundation made a social media post about the project. It spread virally, and the local parks board and Chamber of Commerce have been getting interested calls steadily ever since.

On Sunday, the village’s parks department posted on social media that the trail would open Monday. A grand opening event is planned from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 29.

The trail’s availability in coming months will depend on the weather. But if conditions are cold and clear, it should be available from morning until night all winter long. A warming center at Winter Park, situated next to its modest outdoor skating rink, includes donated ice skates users can borrow. Park officials recommend people bring their own skates or rent them at a nearby outdoor sports shop, since availability of sizes and styles is not guaranteed among the donated skates.

And even though it’s the first year, Duke, Royer and others are expecting the feature to attract thousands — even, potentially, as many as 1,600 per day. That would represent a serious boost to local tourism.

“We’re not sure we had 1,600 all winter on the ice rink,” Weber said.

That would be a welcome boost to the town’s winter tourism economy, said Park Board chair Laura Bertch.

“Last winter, with no snow and no snowmobiling, the town(’s businesses) took a hit,” Bertch said. “We’re hoping this will help this winter.”

In the future, park board members hope to plan special events at the skating trail, potentially modeled after the Fire and Ice nighttime skating events popular at the Canadian park.

“It just draws people in from everywhere,” Weber said. “I don’t know that it’s going to be that way in Year One for us. But as we continue to perfect this … it’s exciting.”