I’ve always been connected to nature, but until a few winters ago I’d never had the opportunity to be on ice formed by Mother Nature. I reached out to a friend of mine, Paul Zizka, who’s a mountain man in Banff. He said there was an opportunity to skate on Lake Minnewanka the next morning. So, I met him there.

When I finally got to step on that ice, the feeling was magical. I’ve been skating my whole life; I’ve skated indoor rinks that have the best technology in the world to make the ice as smooth as possible. But nothing comes close to the smoothness I felt on that ice that was just formed the day before by Mother Nature. It felt like I could push, then glide on that one push forever. As a figure skater, that feeling is infectious.

It was so quiet I could hear my blades, and I could also hear the ice. Wild ice sounds like no other ice. It almost feels like you’re in the middle of a science fiction space war, because it makes these “pew, pew, pew, pew” sounds like I’d never heard before. It was completely mesmerizing. I actually lay down and just allowed myself to hear the ice. It feels alive. It feels like it’s talking to you.

That first experience of being on wild ice completely shifted my perception of skating. It allows for more freedom because nature is so free in itself. It forces you, or inspires you, to find that kind of freedom within yourself. From that point on, all I wanted to do was skate on wild ice. Now it’s part of my life, and it will always be part of my life.