ANGELO LYNN

As we enter the New Year, the weather is on our minds partly because it has been so unusually warm and snowless; but more to the point it’s how that changing weather impacts our lives. We live in an environment that more traditionally has offered snow and colder temperatures — and the winter fun that provides: skiing in one form or another, snowboarding, ice-fishing, snowmobiling, sledding, ice hockey, ice skating, broom ball or any other winter sport you can imagine. When that lifestyle is interrupted it sparks conversation — and concern.

But as much as we talk about climate change, it is interesting how easy it is to deny the reality that the warming climate is changing our winter culture faster than many of us are willing to admit.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the Elfstedentocht, a long-distance ice skating race held in the Netherlands that had been a tradition since 1909. The race has been captured in rich, historic paintings by revered artists like Hendrick Avercamp. They depict scenes of whole communities on the ice, tents pitched, horses and sleighs freighting folks and goods hither and yon, parties and festivities everywhere. The joyful winter scenes are part of local folklore that still excites the imagination and inspires anticipation of the next race, with locals anxiously monitoring local weather reports hoping colder temps will freeze the canals with a layer of ice thick enough to be safe. 

It hasn’t since 1997.

The race once went through 11 historic cities of Friesland and remains one of the country’s “most beloved national traditions,” according to Benjamin Moser, a Dutch resident and author who wrote an essay in Wednesday’s New York Times. It hasn’t happened in 26 years. It is now unknown to a whole generation.

“What nobody can bring themselves to say is that the Elfstedentocht is gone,” he writes. “Over. Living in a country protected from the sea by huge manufactured barriers, we are starting to understand that even these heroic constructions will not be strong enough for climate change … And when we imagine the losses to cultural heritage that global warming entails, we often think of things we’d try to rescue, or buildings we can’t move, or of a striking few images: snowless Alps, drowned Venice. We don’t always think about the immaterial losses that warming will bring — or, in the case of the Elfstedentocht, that it already has … (Yet) nobody can stand to say it’s over. You’d hate to be the prime minister who told everyone to forget about such a beloved national tradition. Instead, barring some freak storm, it just somehow will never happen again.”

The denial of such truths has consequences, Moser continues, making an analogy to the myth of the country’s rural farmers, who have long since been replaced by large, heavily industrialized and subsidized agribusinesses. “There’s nothing traditional about mass factory farms, but their lobbyists have been able to convince a large percentage of the population that attempts to reduce (farm) pollution are an attack on a traditional way of life.”

The parallels to life in Vermont are undeniable.

The Dutch may be ahead of us a decade or so, but the trajectory on climate is similar. And Moser’s point doesn’t just pertain to the changing climate. In Vermont, it’s also the demise of small farms, of Nordic centers and smaller ski resorts, of independent retailers, of smaller schools and churches, and in many communities the loss of the local newspaper.

His larger point is that we must confront the reality — to name it and honor it — and make the necessary changes to save what we treasure before being resigned to live with the consequences. 

“Maybe if we could find a way to mourn the Elfstedentocht, we could understand that there is a price to refusing to see what inaction on the climate has cost us. If we refuse to look at it head-on — to name and remember these losses — we’ll find ourselves like those older people in Friesland, glued to the weather reports, measuring the thickness of the ice, sharpening their skates for a race that will never come again.”

Angelo Lynn