WARROAD, MINN. – I laced up my skates at the mouth of Lake of the Woods, beside a row of boat docks covered in snow. Ahead of me lay miles of the twisting, frozen Warroad River, which I planned to skate — in the dark.
Yes, this might ordinarily be a bit foolish. Running water doesn’t always freeze safely or at least smoothly.
But in Warroad, a glassy and surprisingly wide expanse of open ice forms a trail that snakes past houses and yards strewn with hockey nets.
On a Sunday evening in late January, the Riverbend Skate Path was mostly mine to explore. The glow from my headlamp and lighted decorations along the way were bright enough to stickhandle with a puck and dodge any cracks. A couple of snowmobilers buzzed by on the riverbanks. A deer also bounded in front of me, stopping to gaze into my headlamp.
I zipped by “no wake” warnings and a poster advertising a hockey camp led by the legendary Gigi Marvin. One end of the path is a little roundabout plowed in the snow. The other is marked by a pair of neon-green fake palm trees and a sign asking boaters to yield for seaplanes.
This skate is unlike any other in a state obsessed with hockey, and that’s why I made the six-hour trek north from Minneapolis. After decades on manicured indoor rinks or carefully flooded outdoor ones, I wanted ice with a little elbow room, where skating feels more like hiking or cross-country skiing and is free from the confinement of hockey boards.

“Wild ice” outside is usually available only when there is a spell of cold weather without snow. It’s also most often early in winter, when skating thinner ice can be risky.
Not in Warroad, aka Hockeytown USA, a small community near the Canadian border. For months every winter, a volunteer network plows, scrapes, floods and polishes what has become a unique attraction for hockey nuts like me.