The New Zealand Skating History Project is asking former skaters to share tales and memorabilia to help build a comprehensive digital archive of the pastime.
Dr Grace Bateman and Paul Garbett recently won a 2025-26 Oral History Award from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage to record interviews.
A previous grant enabled the pair to cover memories between the 1930s and 1970s.
The new grant aims to cover activity from the 1980s onwards.
The pair seek five people willing to be interviewed for an enduring historical record.
Dr Bateman said the interviews were part of their wider initiative, which aimed to preserve, share and trace the changing narrative of ice skating in New Zealand.
‘‘There are a lot more people than we can interview, so what we are doing is talking with everyone who is interested, encouraging them to digitise their own material and send that to me.
‘‘Then we are going to select five interviewees based on who represents a well-rounded picture of skating at different times in different places throughout the country.’’
‘‘Prior to the first ice rink being built in Timaru in 1952, all ice skating in New Zealand was outside.
‘‘People skated whenever it froze and according to anecdotal reports, it froze more often.’’
While some sites were in Canterbury, a large proportion were in Otago.
‘‘So it is very much an Otago story.’’
Large crowds took to the ice.
‘‘I think that skating used to play the role that skiing does.
‘‘It was a winter-based activity that people would really look forward to and companies in Dunedin would hire buses and bus their staff to Central Otago, particularly Manorburn Dam in Alexandra, and have staff outings.’’
There could be hundreds or even thousands of people on the ice.
When competitions were held, there would be a huge number of spectators.
‘‘I think it filled in a void in winter society and it was something to watch, something very exotic to watch.’’
Dr Bateman said these days a ‘‘winter adventuresome sport’’ was often skiing.
‘‘The difference is that skiing is very expensive.
‘‘Ice skating was very cheap, because all you needed was to hire some ice skates and if you were skating on natural ice, of course the ice was free.’’
She said the frozen landscape in the region offered a unique experience compared to other parts of the world.
‘‘In Canterbury, places like Lake Ida froze because they were in valleys which were always in the shade.
‘‘Whereas Manorburn is enormous and sunny. That was the very rare thing, that you are skating in the sun in Manorburn.’’
She noted history was not just about dates or organisations, but also personal stories regarding human experiences.
As well as recording oral histories, the team sought material such as scrapbooks, films and photographs.
The initiative used entirely private and safe forms of data sovereignty and did not rely on third-party infrastructure.
‘‘We are self-hosting our own website and it enables us to truly offer interviewees confidentiality of their private information. There is zero possibility of it being hacked when we host it ourselves on our own Linux computers.
‘‘People can trust in our research process, because when we are doing interviews with people all throughout the country online, their information is not going through any third party,’’ Dr Bateman said.
— Visit nzskatinghistory.org.nz to contribute to the project or for more information.
