Tour skating

Location	Finland
Tags	tour skating, excursions, ice, safety, equipment, hobby, experiences, community, skating, climate change, winter exercise, winter sports

Practitioners and people who know the tradition well

In organised tour skating activities, the mandatory safety equipment includes ice picks, a throw line, tour skating poles and a backpack with a crotch strap, containing spare clothing packed waterproof. The use of a helmet is also recommended. Photo: Veikko Iittainen

Finland’s winter and its long geography create excellent conditions for tour skating. At the national level, the season is long: on northern lakes and ponds, the first tour skaters are usually seen in October, while the last skateable lake ice is often used well into early May. On sea ice, the season is usually shorter, extending from November–December to March–April. During the season, the availability of ice suitable for tour skating varies across Finland depending on frost, snow, rain and wind, but suitable areas are usually available somewhere in the country throughout the winter.

The growing popularity of tour skating has also partly been influenced by climate change, as people have begun to seek substitute activities for traditional cross-country skiing. Snow conditions, especially in southern and western Finland, have become less reliable, making skiing more difficult while at the same time improving opportunities for skating. The popularity of tour skating has also been supported by the development and improved availability of equipment, such as long-bladed skates, free-heel bindings, ice staffs and various safety equipment such as throw lines.

All in all, the number of people who skate using tour skates is estimated to be around 150,000. Most of them skate on long-distance skating tracks, which have been created in many localities around Finland. These tracks make it easy to begin skating with tour skates and practise the basic technique, after which the step from long-distance skating to tour skating on natural ice is a short one. Tour skating on natural ice, however, requires not only skating skills but also a range of other skills, from route planning to reading the ice. In Finland, these skills are taught mainly by the tour skating association Suomen retkiluistelijat ry.

Suomen retkiluistelijat ry is a member association of the Outdoor Association of Finland (Suomen Latu), and the association has more than 5,500 members as of 2026. It is a central organiser of safety guidance, safety training and excursions. In recent years, the association’s activities have expanded to cover the whole of Finland. The longest-established activity has been in coastal areas from Porvoo to Vaasa. Today, activities are also very active in the regions of Lahti, Tampere, Jyväskylä and Kuopio. During the 2020s, the association’s activities have also expanded into eastern, southeastern and northern Finland. The popularity of organised tour skating, like many other forms of outdoor exercise, grew particularly strongly during the Covid-19 pandemic in the 2020s. The increase in the number of organised excursions and the number of good ice winters further increased its popularity.

Organised skating culture is cross-border. Tour skating associations in Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands share a common online service through which members of the associations announce excursions to be organised, register for them, and record information on all organised excursions in the form of trip reports. The reporting of excursions has created a literary culture of its own around tour skating. In addition, observations on ice conditions in the Nordic countries are saved on the website, which enables members to make broad use of skateable ice. The site also includes tools for forecasting ice conditions and planning excursions. The users of the online service include 87 associations from Sweden, two from the Netherlands, one from Canada, one from the United States, and from Finland Suomen retkiluistelijat and Ålands Skrinnare. Something of the popularity of tour skating is reflected in the fact that Suomen retkiluistelijat is the second-largest member association of the Outdoor Association of Finland.

Practising of the tradition

Tour skating means making excursions on natural ice either in a group led by an excursion leader or independently with a friend or a group of friends. In association activities, both forms are practised, whereas unorganised tour skating typically consists of independent excursions. Excursions also have different areas of emphasis depending on the skater’s motives: for some, skating itself is most important, while others emphasise the excursion aspect and the skating destinations. Common to all these motivations is movement in a natural environment. Excursions are enjoyed for the ice and the diversity of ice, the landscapes, the company of like-minded people, and often also the packed lunches. What distinguishes tour skating from long-distance skating is the place where the activity takes place. Although both take place on ice, tour skating is practised on open natural ice while travelling, whereas long-distance skating takes place on maintained tracks, where the track provider has prepared a skateable route and often informs skaters of the strength of the ice. For this reason, ice picks are often sufficient as safety equipment on long-distance skating tracks.

During the winter season, if ice and snow conditions allow, Suomen retkiluistelijat organises excursions of different levels every weekend and often also during the week on lake, river and sea ice. The difficulty of the excursion is announced in advance, and those registering can choose an excursion according to their own fitness level. The excursions are led by experienced skaters who have completed leader training. Each participant is, however, responsible for the success and safety of their own excursion even on guided outings.

Tour skating is suitable for people of all ages and fitness levels. In organised tour skating, it is both the most enjoyable and the safest to take part in excursions intended for one’s own level of skill and fitness. The purpose of classifying excursions is to help participants choose an outing suited to their interests, strength, endurance and skills. Practising tour skating develops the ability to read ice and understand ice conditions, which in turn improves safe movement on ice. The ability to read ice is needed in tour skating in order to identify places that must be avoided or examined more carefully. Practical ice-reading skills develop through practice. Help in learning is available, for example, through the beginner’s excursion in the introductory course of Suomen retkiluistelijat and through the course for independent skaters and assistant leaders. These courses practise, among other things, how to determine ice thickness and how the structure of the ice affects its load-bearing capacity, how to identify the boundaries of frozen areas, how to assess the impact of weather on the strength of the ice, and how to understand the effects of currents, different landforms and human-made structures on ice safety.

Participants in the independent excursion and assistant leader course examining the strength and structure of the ice in December 2024. Photo: Veikko Iittainen

On the excursions of organised tour skaters, route planning and the investigation of ice conditions make versatile use of ice information reported by other members on the association’s members’ website, available satellite images, maps, nautical charts, weather information and other sources. With the help of all these, it is possible to plan a safe route and to assess in advance places where special caution is required. Based on the collected information, a risk assessment can also be made as to whether the excursion can be carried out, whether the plan needs to be changed, or whether the excursion must be cancelled. At sea, tour skating is usually more demanding than excursions on lakes because of rapidly changing ice and wind conditions, shipping lanes and maritime traffic.

A characteristic feature of the sport is strong variation in conditions. Because of changing conditions and the risks they entail, organised tour skating has developed a strong safety culture, which has become a central part of the identity of organised tour skating in Finland. All members of Suomen retkiluistelijat take a beginner’s course in which safe movement on ice is practised both in theory and in practice. Generally speaking, the safety of tour skating is improved, among other things, by always moving on the ice with at least one companion, by planning excursions with risks in mind, and by equipping oneself properly for excursions, for example by taking along ice staffs, ice picks, waterproof spare clothing in a backpack that also functions as a float, a crotch strap and a throw line.

The background and history of the tradition

The oldest skates made from animal bones found in Northern Europe have been dated to approximately 5,000 years ago. The invention of skates is believed to have been motivated by the fact that they facilitated movement and thus the acquisition of a livelihood. According to research by Manchester Metropolitan University, southern Finland might be the most likely area where skates were invented. “Bone skates were widely used in Northern and Central Europe. The oldest skates, around 3,000 years old, have been found at the bottom of a lake in Switzerland. Bone skates approximately one thousand years old have been found, among other places, in Scandinavia, Ireland, Germany and the Czech Republic.” According to one study, the inhabitants of Finland were able to make particularly effective use of the invention for a long time. This efficiency may have resulted from the fact that Finns used a pole to propel themselves while skating.

Skating on bone skates was quite different from movement on modern skates. The skates were either tied to shoes or the skater simply stood on top of the bones. Instead of a sharpened metal blade, there was a rather flat bone surface against the ice. The skater could not use their feet to create momentum, because without bindings the bones would slip away on their own. Even with bindings, the bone surface merely slid against the ice and could not be used to produce movement by pushing against the ice in the same way as a metal blade. Movement was therefore produced by pushing a sharp-ended pole into the ice between the legs.

“The whole of the northern hemisphere was affected by a cold period, the so-called Little Ice Age, from the 16th century to the 19th century, during which rivers, lakes, ponds and canals froze over across a wide area of central and northern Europe. Skating became popular in the 17th century, for example in Britain and France, where it was especially a pastime of the elite and even of the court; Queen Marie Antoinette of France is said to have been an enthusiastic skater.”

The improvement in skating conditions also led to a considerable development in skate design, as the metal blade gradually replaced the bone blade at the beginning of the 17th century. This made skating faster and more controlled, and the sport began to spread in Europe also as a leisure activity and not only as a means of movement. The development of skates was especially rapid in the Netherlands, where by the 17th century skating had become an activity of the whole people, not only a privilege of the wealthy. Long journeys between villages on frozen canals were popular. In 17th-century skates, the blade was set into wood, and the front part often ended in an elaborate curl that prevented the tip from catching in the ice. The skates were fastened to the user’s own shoes with leather straps that ran through the wooden part. The English nobility adopted skating when King James II brought back with him the skill he had learned in the Netherlands after returning from exile. At first, the blades were quite wide and low, allowing for a style of movement closer to gliding than to modern edge-based skating.

By the end of the 17th century, skates had developed structurally into a form consisting of a wooden base with iron blade that remained popular until the 19th century, when fully metal skates came onto the market. As early as the late 19th century, Swedish literature emphasised the “great health effect” of long ice-based excursions and gave guidance on the use of equipment such as the ice staff, ice picks and rescue rope.

In its current form, tour skating developed in 20th-century Sweden, where the pastime quickly became a popular winter sport and from where it later spread to Finland in the late 20th century. Today, tour skating may be considered a transnational activity, because it is widely practised without regard to the borders of nation-states. The organised cross-border tour skating organisation Skridskonätet is an excellent example of this.

In Finland, the activity gradually became established as a distinct form of winter exercise practised above all on lakes, sea bays and slowly flowing rivers. Tour skating continues a culture of moving on ice that has existed for centuries, if not millennia. Historically, different waterways made movement from place to place easier than, for example, the road network. Tour skating has fitted into this tradition, even though today the motive for movement is pleasure rather than the trade or religious reasons of earlier times.

The transmission of the tradition

Long-distance skating tracks have become more common, and many people have their first experience with tour skates on them. During snowy conditions, skating tracks provide a good place to maintain skating skills. Pictured skaters in the Saarikylät skating track in Kangasala. Photo: Veikko Iittainen

In Finland, children usually learn to skate by the time they are at school, and many even earlier. Although school skating usually means skating with ice hockey skates or figure skates, it also creates a foundation for tour skating: movement on blades on ice is learned already in childhood. One factor contributing to the vitality of tour skating has been the growth in the number of long-distance skating tracks throughout Finland. These skating tracks are popular destinations for family day trips, which helps to familiarize people to skating on natural ice. In addition, tour skates can be rented on some of the tracks, giving people a first experience of long-bladed skates. In recent years, tour skating has become increasingly well known, although it is often confused with long-distance skating on tracks. From the tracks, however, the step to becoming a tour skater is a short one: many long-distance skaters look for a new spark for their hobby, and some discover tour skating through other channels. As a visually striking activity, tour skating has benefited from modern social media, where posts about tour skating are popular and spread widely. In addition to its website, Suomen retkiluistelijat also has its own social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

An important part of safeguarding and transmitting the tradition takes place through association activities. Within the association, the tour skating tradition is preserved because new members become acquainted with an already existing tradition in oral, written and visual form. In unorganised skating, the transmission of the tradition takes place mainly through oral knowledge.

Suomen retkiluistelijat transmits the tradition at many levels: first in the beginner’s course, later in the course for independent skaters and assistant leaders, and finally some also complete leader training. Beginner’s courses mainly teach safety matters and the basics of tour skating. In the course for independent skaters and assistant leaders, members train to become assistant leaders who support the excursion leader in agreed tasks. The same course also teaches the skills by which participants can plan and carry out independent excursions with a friend or group of friends. Leader training, in turn, covers a large body of knowledge about the safety and other traditions of tour skating necessary when acting as an excursion leader. This multi-level training is therefore well suited to preserving, developing and transmitting the tradition. The living heritage develops while remembering its roots.

Documentation of the tradition

Tour skating has been documented in collections. The largest of these is the shared Skridskonätet database used by Suomen retkiluistelijat and associations in other countries, to which all excursions made by members of Suomen retkiluistelijat are recorded in the form of trip reports, whether they are independent excursions or official trips. For example, during the 2024–25 season, members of Suomen retkiluistelijat saved 3,953 trip reports to the site, reflecting both the scale of the activity and the extent of the written material that accumulates. Typically, trip reports deal with matters such as the events of the excursion, the route, ice conditions and various nature-related or other experiences encountered on the trip. The style of the reports varies greatly depending on their authors, ranging from technical reports to short stories. In addition to a verbal description, the report usually includes photographs and a precise route track, and nowadays it is increasingly common to include a linked YouTube video. Different kinds of incident reports are also attached to trip reports if, for example, accidents or falls through the ice have occurred.

Ice observations are recorded in an online service and are available there for use by members of the association. On 11 March 2026, ice conditions in central Finland were poor for tour skating: red dots indicate that the ice is not suitable for skating, and yellow dots indicate that skating is possible with difficulty.

Trip reports are available to the association’s members and can be found years later in the archive using different search criteria. Suomen retkiluistelijat also makes numerous observations on ice conditions in different parts of Finland, and these observations are saved in the same archive. In an ice observation, the condition of the ice on the observed waterbody at that moment is recorded. Often a photograph is also attached. Ice observations can be used in planning excursions or later when comparing conditions between different months or years. In this way, Suomen retkiluistelijatcontributes in many ways to the documentation of winter conditions and the heritage based on them.

The recorded written material is used, for example, when developing improvements to safety and excursion practices. Suomen retkiluistelijat also compiles its annual activities in the form of an annual report, in which the activities of the year are summarised briefly in statistics and short descriptions. Statistics are maintained, among other things, on the excursions made during the season, ice observations, accident rates and falls through the ice, and these are compared with previous years.

The tradition is also documented in the association’s own Skrinnari magazine, which Suomen retkiluistelijat has published annually since 1993. The magazines are available in electronic form on the association’s members’ pages. The Outdoor Association of Finland has also published numerous articles on tour skating in its Latu ja Polku magazine. In addition, the archive of Suomen retkiluistelijat has been deposited in the TAHTO Center for Finnish Sports Culture.

Sustainable development

Tour skating is based on movement in natural conditions and does not require built facilities or artificial freezing, which makes it ecologically less demanding than many other forms of winter exercise. The values of sustainable development are, at their best, built into the activity itself: practitioners are united by appreciation of nature and its silence, the freedom of movement, the feeling of speed, as well as mental well-being and community. Excursions are carried out with respect for natural conditions, and movement on the ice follows everyman’s rights while also respecting the limits of private ownership. Tour skaters aim to leave no trace in nature and do not litter the environment.

The positive ecological and socio-cultural effects of tour skating relate especially to a growing respect for nature and the strengthening of community between people. Shared excursions require cooperation, trust in others and the sharing of responsibility in the assessment of ice conditions and in safety. At the same time, the hobby strengthens people’s relationship with the winter landscape and increases understanding of ice conditions. The equipment used in tour skating is also mainly long-lasting: skates, staffs, ice picks and other gear often remain in use for years. Economically and socially, the activity can be seen as supporting well-being, as movement and exercise in nature improve physical fitness and mood.

All human activity also produces environmental impacts. In tour skating, the most significant burden is often connected with travelling to skateable ice when there is no safe ice nearby. People may travel long distances in search of good ice conditions. To reduce these impacts, more sustainable ways of acting are favoured within the tour skating community. In its excursion guidelines, Suomen retkiluistelijat recommends the use of car-sharing and public transport whenever possible. In addition, the association’s regional organisations organise annual bus trips to good skating areas, allowing a larger number of enthusiasts to travel together to the same destinations and reducing the environmental impact of travel per skater. The sustainability of tour skating is also examined more broadly in relation to a changing climate, since natural ice conditions are a central prerequisite for practising the tradition.

The future of the tradition

The popularity of tour skating began to grow strongly during the 2000s. According to a report by Yle in 2025, the number of tour skaters had more than tripled over two decades, and the number of practitioners in Finland was estimated at over 150,000, although most of these are probably long-distance skaters. At the same time, the membership of Suomen retkiluistelijat ry grew to over 5,000 members. According to the Outdoor Association of Finland’s own surveys, tour skating is one of the most interesting new winter sports. The future of tour skating appears promising.

The growth in the popularity of tour skating has also been influenced by several good natural ice winters, the decrease in early winter skiing snow, the wide visibility of tour skating in the media, and the growth in the course offering and regional reach of Suomen retkiluistelijat. In expanding the association’s activity, a mentoring system is used in which excursion leaders from already active areas support the launch of activities in new regions. The Outdoor Association of Finland supports this mentoring work. As the number of association members increases, knowledge of the sport grows.

A good foundation for the sport has been provided by the increased number of long-distance skating tracks, where many people have first skated with tour skates in the form of long-distance skating. In addition, long-distance skating has become more common as a tourism activity in different regions: several companies maintain long-distance skating tracks and rent out equipment to tourists and local residents. The annual Ice Marathon long-distance skating event in Kuopio attracts foreign skaters, especially Dutch participants. Outside the competition, the track is freely available as a long-distance skating track. After trying long-distance skating or pursuing it for a longer time, some skaters seek out the beginner’s courses of Suomen retkiluistelijat and thus move onto natural ice as tour skaters.

Climate change is a central question for the future of the sport. If global warming continues as expected, conditions for tour skating may paradoxically even improve in the short term, but in the future the tradition may be threatened in southern Finland. On the other hand, possible changes in AMOC circulation may also threaten the tour skating tradition.

At the same time, the tour skating community is continuously developing new modes of action that make it possible to continue moving safely on natural ice in changing conditions. The tradition adapts to conditions, but its essential core of moving in winter nature and understanding ice conditions remains.