Ice Skating on a Frozen Lake, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Ice Skating on a Frozen Lake, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Ice Skating on a Frozen Lake, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-2C41E0

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A woman in a dark wool coat and knit hat stands on the frozen surface of a lake, holding a stick or branch across her body in both hands with the posture of someone learning to balance. Behind her, a scattered group of other skaters move across the ice in the casual way of a weekend outing, a few wearing the bright splashes of orange and red that parents added to their children's winter clothes so they could be spotted. The far shore rises in evergreens and bare deciduous woods, and the ice stretches flat and pale under a winter sky. This was ordinary then—a lake froze solid enough to walk on, families went out on it without equipment or warning signs, and a stick served the same purpose as a rail. What strikes now is how completely the ice was trusted, how casually people stood on what was fundamentally a temporary agreement between water and cold.

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