From its ninth-century, Northern European origins as a means for hunting and traveling on ice, skating has been explored for its leisure possibilities. By the time that iron skates—or schaats as their sixteenth-century Dutch inventors called them—had replaced their wooden or bone predecessors, their transformation to recreational usage was well under way. This can be seen in some of Pieter Brueghel's sixteenth-century paintings of peasants skating on the canals of Belgium and the Netherlands, activities that were made famous in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales of Denmark. Not so long after iron blades were invented, skates that could snap on to the sole and heel of boots were being manufactured by the Acme Skate Company in Halifax, Nova Scotia. These skates were electroplated in nickel or gold for the wealthy to carry around in expensive carrying cases.

Jayne Torvill (right) and Christopher Dean perform their ice...