Attaching the blades to my boots, I shyly walk away. Sliding on the ice, I maintain my balance while staring at the horizon bathed in marshmallow pink. As a bronze level figure skater, I have always dreamed of skating on natural ice outdoors. And now here I am, on the winter solstice, in Luleå, Swedish Lapland, just 68 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

The solstice has granted me three hours of daylight, and even at lunchtime, the brightest time of the day, the sun threatens to slip below the horizon, turning the sky twilight blue. This doesn’t bother the Scandinavians, who have been ice skating as a means of transportation since the late 1300s. In winter, the coastal waters of Luleå freeze over. In 2004, the opportunity to use it for skating proved irresistible and a Luleå resident persuaded the council to clear snow to create a 13km loop ice track.

Word spread and the circuit is now in its 20th year, attracting 150,000 visitors a year. Climate change has played a role, as warmer temperatures push skaters north: every February, the Royal Netherlands Skating Federation holds its annual Grand Prix in Luleå. The city route loops from the northern port to a disused crane in the southern port, from where skateboarders like me can take a detour to the island of Gråsjälören.

I’m one of the first skaters this winter, so I pass only a handful of locals, riding kicksleighs (a traditional form of transportation that looks like a chair on skates) and dogs on walks, and a lone fisherman who waits near the hole he made in the ice so the perch can bite. “Hej hej (“hi hi”),” he agrees. Wild skating, or touring skating, has been popular among the Dutch and Scandinavians for over 100 years. The main trend is “river bagging” – a bit like “mountain bagging” for climbers – which has developed alongside technology to track the distances of skaters. That said, some skaters don’t consider the Luleå ice track to be true wild skating, even though it takes place outdoors, because snow plows are used to clear it.

The next day, I meet Ari Hultqvist, the president of the Swedish Outdoor Association, who placed fifth in the Skridsko rankings, an informal Swedish league, for hiking 1,794 miles during the winter of 2022-2023. I join him for a 90-minute skate between the ports of Luleå, under a crescent moon. Conditions are bad; there is a layer of snow on the trail that threatens to trip us. We persevere like cyclists teetering in the sand, skating slowly, breathing steadily, my scarf crunchy with icicles. We are alone in the dark, our headlamps limiting our vision to ten feet but bright enough to make the ice shine like diamonds.

Or the ice is the thinnest, under the Bergnäs bridge, it breaks without warning, like crème brûlée under the tap of a spoon. My heart stops. “We are perfectly safe,” Ari reassures me. “The ice is 50 cm – strong enough for snow plows. Only the top layer cracks. »

It’s annoying, but soon I’m distracted by another wonder: the Northern Lights marring the sky. No wonder Ari loves skating outdoors. “I like the sound of skating,” he smiles, firing an imaginary weapon with his fingers. “Bench! Bench! Cracking the ice is like Star Wars. It’s also artistic. Yesterday, when the sun was shining, the ice looked like pearls; the crystals were all facing different directions.

I am slightly soothed by these poetic words as we move forward. “Skating at night is difficult and dangerous,” says Ari. “It’s not for everyone. But if there is a full moon and snow nearby, it’s not so dark and it’s beautiful. Instead of animal tracks and forest, you see stars and there is an element of surprise.

But there are other surprises hiding invisibly. Black ice. The pleasure of navigating this thin, transparent ice is, for some skaters, the Holy Grail of outdoor skating, and they travel by snowmobile to discover it. “If you skate on black ice under a black sky, you can’t see where the ice meets the sky. It’s like, “Poof! What just happened? It’s like you’ve entered space. You just have to hope there’s still ice in front of you.

But black ice is unpredictable and in northern Sweden there is a short window for this: at the beginning of the season, when the sea is frozen but the snow has not yet fallen. That doesn’t stop skaters like Ari from wanting it. “It takes effort to find black ice – a full day or more. We snowmobile on 10 to 15 cm of ice, driving slowly and using satellites and radar to guide us. Sometimes when we snowmobile on solid, thick ice, there is running water next to us created by warm currents, which means some of the water doesn’t freeze.

I myself have long dreamed of “tour skating”, that is, skating long distances on frozen rivers. For years I imagined sliding past waterfalls on lakes shining like polished mirrors, the only sounds being those of my blades scraping ice and the snorting of a moose in a forest. In addition to being sustainable, wild skating has a meditative quality; it’s a way to reconnect with nature and be mindful. It’s also about having an adventure and taking risks. It’s not without risk: it’s best to travel with a local guide, and skaters are legally required to carry dry clothing and ice picks in case they fall through the ice.

But the window for touring skating is narrow. Skaters must wait until winter begins – when streams freeze enough to support their weight – but they must also skate before snowfall, because snow hides cracks and insulates the ice, making it more susceptible to collapse. Unfortunately, the weather conditions meant that I missed my chance.

For experts like Ari, skating outdoors is a calculated risk. “I skate in groups for safety reasons,” he says. “When you fall, it’s not instantaneous: you break the surface and the ice crumbles in slow motion, like quicksand – and there’s nothing you can do about it. You just whistle, then your friends come coming at 15 mph to save you.

Ari mitigates the risk by wearing ice picks around his neck and carrying a waterproof bag filled with ropes and a change of clothes. “The air in the bag also helps you float,” he explains. Luckily, I don’t fall in, although I don’t find any black ice to skate on either – but I’ll settle for that marshmallow pink sky any day.