British Columbia

Trout Lake in Vancouver now safe to skate on, says Park Board

The Vancouver Park Board said Wednesday that the East Vancouver lake has 5 inches of frozen solid ice and is now safe to skate on.

The Park Board has not said whether other ponds and lakes in the city are safe to skate on yet

Jaden and Shee Terry pass a puck around on a makeshift rink on Trout Lake Wednesday evening. (Gian-Paolo Mendoza/CBC)

Trout Lake in East Vancouver is now open for public, unsupervised skating.

The Vancouver Park Board tweeted Wednesday afternoon the lake now has 12 centimetres of frozen solid ice and is now safe to skate on.

A couple of young hockey players, Jaden and Shee Terry, took advantage of the free ice time Wednesday night.

They were able to sneak in a quick game of hockey before bed when their mom saw the announcement from the park board online.

"I came back from a Canucks game and I heard about it, my mom told me about it," said Shee Terry, 13, who plays minor league hockey. "This is my first time on a pond."

Terry said he's going to try and get a group of friends together to play a game in the daytime Thursday.

The Park Board has not said whether other ponds and lakes in the city, like Stanley Park's Lost Lagoon and the pond on Granville Island, are safe to skate on yet.

According to the park board, the last time Vancouver's lake and ponds were safe for public skating was in 1996.