Geo Answer

Natural gas shortages and frigid temperatures have many Europeans shivering these days.

But for today’s Geo Quiz, we want you to name a northern European country where no one’s complaining about the cold. In fact, the cold has encouraged many there to go out ice skating.

Hundreds of thousands of people laced up their skates this weekend and took a spin on ponds, lakes, and canals.

This country borders the North Sea. And it’s really one large estuary formed by three rivers, the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt.

Now, the canals there don’t ice over all that often.

Some historians say ice skating here harkens back to the Middle Ages, when winters were much colder than nowadays. But when things do freeze up, there are spontaneous public holidays.

We’ll hear from a couple of families that took to the ice this past weekend. First try and name this low-lying country in northern Europe.

A cold snap across parts of Europe has been good news in the country we asked you about for today’s Geo Quiz. The frozen ponds and canals brought out thousands of skaters this past weekend all across the Netherlands.

So the Netherlands is the answer we were looking for.

Daniela Rosche went out skating for the first time in a long time this past weekend in Amsterdam and took along her young daughter.

International whistling champion Geert Chatrou from the Dutch city of Mierlo also went out skating with his family. As you can hear in our interview, Chatrou says when the ice freezes in the Netherlands, people get a a kind of skating fever.