The ghost of Cedarena – Memories of skating under the stars

The former ice rink is now overgrown with vegetation at Cedarena. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

July 2024

The buildings are boarded up; the boards that make up the oval enclosure are weathered and deteriorating, containing an overgrown space that once was a popular place to skate away the afternoon or evening. The chatter and excitement of crowds skating in circles under the overhead lighting have been replaced by silence, only broken by the rustling of the leaves in the surrounding trees and the water flowing along a nearby river.

Found in a wood lot, down a short incline and beside Little Rouge Creek, are the remains of Cedarena, an old fashioned outdoor natural ice skating rink that was once a popular place for adults and children to skate.

Opened on 29 January 1927, Cedarena was the creation of Arthur Lapp, who built the outdoor rink on his property in the hamlet of Cedar Grove in what was then Markham Township, north-east of Toronto, Ontario.

The inaugural day on 8 February 1927 was taken up with a hockey game and a brass band. Markham Township held a carnival to help promote the 19,375 square foot rink. Operation of Cedarena was taken over by the Cedar Grove Community Club after Arthur Lapp died in 1941.

As its popularity grew, Cedarena became the place to spend winter afternoons and evenings, with skating for adults and children on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Sunday was the day for afternoon skating from 1:00 until 4:00 and adult-only skating held on Tuesday evenings from 7:30 until 10:00.

Old-time music from the 1940s to the 1960s was played for the skaters as they glided along the natural ice, created by pumping water out of Little Rouge Creek using an intricate system of hoses and pumps. When the river froze over, the volunteers who maintained the rink cut a hole in the ice to get at the water. Instead of a Zamboni, a tractor with a resurfacing tool on the back was used to clean ice.

A wooden clubhouse with woodstove was built in the 1950s, providing change rooms and washrooms for guests. Snacks and drinks, like hot chocolate and hot apple cider, were served to the skaters by the volunteer staff.

In its prime, around two dozen volunteers would run the rink and concession stand, including Joyce Lapp in the final two decades, carrying on a family tradition. On a nice day around 400 skaters could be found gliding across the ice surface. Admission win the latter years was $5.00 from every adult and $2.00 from everyone 15 and under.

Cedarena was featured on the big screen in the 2003 movie Blizzard, an American/Canadian co-produced Christmas-themed family film, starring Christopher Plummer, Kevin Pollak and Whoopie Goldberg and directed by LeVar Burton from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

As with most good things, they eventually come to an end. By the early 21st Century, Cedarena was in decline, with operation of the rink left to a handful of volunteers, making regular maintenance such as flooding the rink, smoothing the ice and painting of the buildings and boards around the rink more difficult. Combined with warmer winters that made maintenance of the ice challenging, the buildings, equipment and flooding system were in need of extensive repair and the money and desire to continue was declining.

After closing for the season in the spring of 2015, the decision was made not to re-open the following winter. The Cedar Grove Community Club stated at the time that Cedarena may re-open sometime in the future, but this never happened.

Complicating plans to re-open Cedarena was the fact the Cedar Grove Community Club didn’t own the land, leasing it from the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA). As a result, the club was reluctant to spend the needed money when their lease could be cancelled on reasonable notice. In 2011, Parks Canada had proposed the creation of Rouge National Urban Park, an enlarged version of the existing regional Rouge Park, which was created in 1995 and under the control of the TRCA.

This plan came to fruition when Rouge National Urban Park formally opened on 15 May 2015, a new national park that included land formerly held by Transport Canada for the creation of the never-built Pickering Airport.

The Cedarena buildings and the rink remain today, silently waiting for the return of the skaters who will never come, but if you listen carefully, you can hear the music and the laughter from 88 years of outdoor winter fun. Or maybe it’s just the wind rustling the leaves and overgrown vegetation.