Whereas folks within the Ottawa space have been reluctant to confess it, the announcement on Friday was broadly anticipated: For the primary time since its creation 52 years in the past, the Rideau Canal Skateway, which payments itself because the “world’s largest skating rink,” won’t open this season.

The canal had already lengthy handed its earlier newest opening date of Feb. 2. And Winterlude, the winter pageant held on the primary three weekends of February, had already come and gone with out its signature attraction. Then this week, BeaverTails, the maker of flattened pastries which have change into synonymous with skating on the canal, gave up and eliminated all however one in all its kiosks from the skateway.

As I wrote final 12 months in an article about skating in and round Ottawa, the results of local weather change have lengthy been a fear for the operators of the canal, which in a traditional 12 months welcomes 1.5 million skaters.

[Read: Ice Skating at a Rink is Fun. Gliding Through a Forest? Glorious.]

(Earlier than anybody writes in, I acknowledge that residents of Ottawa, together with me, are spoiled by having fun with a skateway created by the federal authorities, even whether it is shared by guests from throughout Canada and the world.)

Whereas the canal traditionally has opened for 50 skating days a season, the shortest season till this 12 months got here in 2016, when folks may take to the ice for less than 18 days. Final season, skating ended on March 5 after 41 opening days.

The climate this season was significantly ill-suited for the canal. Whereas there have been chilly snaps, they’ve been repeatedly adopted by extended heat spells that usually introduced rain.

I contacted Shawn Kenny, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carleton College who’s a part of a bunch working with the Nationwide Capital Fee, the federal government company accountable for the skateway, to seek out methods to increase or at the least salvage the skating season.

He instructed me that whereas the gyrating temperatures have been actually a giant issue within the canal frustration, there was additionally one other main situation.

“The issue, I feel, is that it’s not essentially good, clear ice,” he wrote in an e mail. The canal is now coated by a layer of what he referred to as “snow ice that has most likely 50 p.c much less bearing capability” than pure ice.

Compounding the problem have been frequent snowfalls after the thaws. The ensuing blanket of snow, he stated, is remarkably good at insulating the canal and stopping the formation of ice robust sufficient to securely assist 1000’s of skaters and the tractors, vehicles and different items of heavy tools used to scrub, flood and preserve the ice.

After becoming sensors within the ice and utilizing radar to profile it final season, the Carleton group experimented early this season with a slush gun, a watery variation of the substitute snow cannons used at ski resorts, to jump-start ice formation. However that approach couldn’t overcome the broad climate sample.

The canal, in fact, isn’t the one ice skating recreation on the town. Whereas out for a stroll a few weeks in the past, I got here throughout a bunch of native drag performers and a Winterlude teddy bear mascot skating on a synthetic ice pad subsequent to the canal in Landsdowne Park. It seemed to be backup plan for “The Ice Parade, Canada’s first-ever Pleasure parade on ice,” initially scheduled to be held on the canal itself. The bogus rink in entrance of Metropolis Corridor was additionally busier than normal.

However, as I wrote final 12 months, Ottawa has an alternative choice for pure ice skating: ice trails operating via forests, together with Icelynd, a creation of Chris Neil, who performed within the Nationwide Hockey League for 17 years.

I referred to as Dave Mayer, who pioneered path skating within the space along with his Patinage en Forêt in Lac des Loups, Quebec, north of the capital.

He instructed me that his season opened on Dec. 15. Apart from 9 days over the important thing Christmas interval and 4 different days, Mr. Mayer stated that his trails have been in operation ever since. The path operators have two benefits over the canal: The forest shades their ice on sunny, heat days. And their ice rests straight on the bottom, not above still-flowing water, permitting it to be thinner but nonetheless robust sufficient to assist equipment.

However the thaws have added to Mr. Mayer’s workload, significantly when he and his crew have wanted to rapidly clear snow that’s come down after heat spells to stop it from sticking to the ice.

Whereas he was not gloating, Mr. Mayer did profit from the canal’s misfortune. He stated that many vacationers introduced their skates to his path this season after arriving in Ottawa to seek out the gates to the canal closed.

“We have been actually completely happy that they didn’t come to Ottawa for nothing,” he stated. “However the Rideau Canal, it’s actually unhappy.”

Trans Canada

The Trans Canada part was compiled by Vjosa Isai, a reporter-researcher for The Occasions in Canada.

• In gentle of the current prepare derailment in Ohio, Ian Austen takes a glance again on the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, a Quebec city the place 47 folks died in 2013 throughout Canada’s worst rail catastrophe in almost 150 years. Within the final decade, little has modified to enhance rail security.

• A 550-million-year-old fossil present in India turned out to be a lower than dramatic discovery, one other episode within the historical past of paleontological misfires. One such episode options Canadian geologists.

• The Ladies’s World Cup kicks off on July 20 via Aug. 20, with matches in 9 cities throughout Australia and New Zealand. The Canadian girls’s workforce is a match favourite, together with the US.

• Title IX, a U.S. federal legislation that banned gender-based discrimination in academic settings and opened doorways for thousands and thousands of feminine athletes within the nation, additionally made the US an incubator for ladies’s nationwide groups worldwide, writes Alan Blinder. This implies extra Olympians for Canada and Europe.

• Canada is amongst a handful of nations the place some employers are experimenting with the four-day workweek. New analysis suggests it comes with advantages, however not everyone seems to be satisfied.

• How do Canada’s efforts to isolate Russia stack up in opposition to different nations within the West?

A local of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Occasions for the previous 16 years. Observe him on Twitter at @ianrausten.

How are we doing?
We’re wanting to have your ideas about this article and occasions in Canada usually. Please ship them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.

Like this e mail?
Ahead it to your mates, and allow them to know they’ll join right here