Vermont edition Nordic skating show.2/18

[Evan Perkins]

Myself, Brett Blanchard and Paxton woebler of Ermine skates we're interviewed on the live  Vermont public call in show Vermont edition that aired today from 12 to one, it will re-air tonight at seven. It is also possible to listen to it on the VermontPublic app, but it may not be on that app until after it airs again tonight I'm not sure how that works. Maybe something else does. I haven't listened to the show, but it seemed to go pretty well, never enough time to get all of the pertinent information across, but I think we did our best.

[Robert O'Brien]

Great job today guys! I thought you all did a great job representing the sport. It certainly feels like nordic skating is having a moment, we'll see if that translates to an influx of new people on the ice.

[Paxson Woelber]

Really enjoyed being on with you guys, Brett and Evan! I feel like between the three of us we were able to hit almost every key point about Nordic skating/wild ice safety. The only thing we missed, I think, was the topic of skating with kids and dogs. A very high percentage (I've read that it's the majority) of wild ice fatalities have involved attempts to rescue dogs. It's definitely something to be aware of. Small critters with agency (I'm including kids there too) can get way out on ice that can't support a rescuer. I've pulled (or helped pull) two dogs out of open water and I'll say those were some of my least favorite moments on wild ice, though fortunately both situations had happy enough endings.

To expand on another point from our show: I mentioned that wild ice skating wasn't really part of outdoor culture in Alaska when I was growing up here. To clarify, of course pond skating and pond hockey were things people (including myself) did. I think the key point is that there wasn't a well-developed community/culture built around wild ice skating as a distinct discipline. I see strong parallels with alpine touring, packrafting, and fattire biking here. These sports, like wild ice skating, had long periods of more quiet tinkering and development followed by explosive growth when communities finally coalesced around them.

A little over a decade ago someone told me that "a few years ago Portage Lake froze and you could skate all the way to the glacier." At the time I thought that sounded like a surreal once-in-a-lifetime fluke. Now, when Portage freezes everyone in Anchorage knows about it and you'll pull up to the lake to find hundreds of people (and kids, and dogs, haha) already out on the ice doing their annual pilgrimage to the calving face. This is a difference in degree, but also on some level a difference in kind. I suspect you've seen something similar in New England, though your skating scene is more mature.

Pretty cool to be a part of it!

Happy skating,

Paxson

On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 1:32 PM Rick Wallis <rmwal...@gmail.com> wrote:

Here you go!

Rick Wallis

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 18, 2026, at 4:21 PM, Evan Perkins <evanwpe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Myself, Brett Blanchard and Paxton woebler of Ermine skates we're interviewed on the live  Vermont public call in show Vermont edition that aired today from 12 to one, it will re-air tonight at seven. It is also possible to listen to it on the VermontPublic app, but it may not be on that app until after it airs again tonight I'm not sure how that works. Maybe something else does. I haven't listened to the show, but it seemed to go pretty well, never enough time to get all of the pertinent information across, but I think we did our best.

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