Lil M & Alfie Want A Winter Visit From You Donna

Rideau Canal declared largest skating rink
Updated Sun. Jan. 27 2008 4:11 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The Rideau Canal Skateway, which has long boasted of being the longest skating rink in the world, can now make it official.

The rink is being recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest naturally frozen ice rink.

Stewart Newport, head of research for London-based Guinness World Records, says there are other bodies of water where people skate, but the Rideau rink's services and infrastructure make it unique as an official skating rink.

The rink is a full 7.8-kilometre long and is about the size of 90 Olympic-sized rinks.

Each year, more than one million visitors flock to skate the rink and dozens of downtown workers use it to commute to work.

"The confirmation by Guinness World Records that the Rideau Canal Skateway is the largest in the world is an important achievement for the NCC," said Marcel Beaudry, Chairman of the National Capital Commission.

The Rideau Canal was built by hand by mainly Irish workers in the 1850s to provide an alternate supply route between Montreal and Kingston, in case of an American threat along the St, Lawrence River.

Thirty-five years ago, the National Capital Commission began clearing the snow off parts of the canal to turn it into a skating rink.

The Skateway usually opens at the end of December and closes in early March and is used as a key site for Winterlude, an annual winter festival held in the capital in early February.