at intervals during the winter are attended by the royal family and
members of the court, and are regarded as important social functions.
All skating is done upon the numerous lakes, and often during the long
nights of the winter hundreds of people, young and old, will gather
at an early hour--it gets dark at four o'clock in the afternoon--and
spend the entire night skating by moonlight. A big fire is built in
some convenient place for the crowd, and smaller fires by individual
parties, who bring luncheon with them and have a picnic in the snow
in the winter. In various parts of the country, national and
international skating contests are held, and winners in local
tournaments, both for speed and fancy skating, are sent to Stockholm
to contest for the grand prizes against the crack skaters of Norway,
Denmark, Russia, and northern Germany.

But the national winter sport of all Scandinavia is skeeing--skimming
over the snow on snow-shoes. There is no more vigorous or exciting
exercise. In the country districts men and women alike are educated to
the use of snowshoes from childhood. As soon as boys and girls are
old enough to skate, they put on skees of a size appropriate to
their stature, and are quite as agile and daring as their elders. It
requires nerve, skill, and muscular strength to skee, and a person who
has never tried snow-shoes always finds it difficult to use them. It
is a sport to which people must be trained from childhood. A skilful
"skeer" can make a mile in two minutes.

Ice yachting and sailing on skates are two of the oldest and most
popular national sports, and are practiced in both Sweden and Norway
by all classes. All the ice yachts and snow-shoes are home-made, and
in the country districts many of the skates.[p]