From Frozen Heritage to Fragile Future: Curling Ponds, Climate Change, and Scotland’s Transitional Vulnerability

A Tradition Under Threat

For centuries, Scotland’s lochs, bogs, and purpose-built curling ponds offered a stage for “The Roaring Game.” Festive bonspiels and fiercely contested matches drew both crowds and camaraderie, with clubs like those at Vale of Alford and Glenesk etching deep local roots. A single harsh winter could transform fields and waterholes into lively hubs for months.

Yet, even the most cherished traditions are at the mercy of the weather. In recent years, the Vale of Alford’s outdoor pond, once animated by the throws of local poet Charles Murray, has often lain silent, denied the solid ice required for play. Glenesk’s club, in Angus, was able to open its outdoor pond only once in five years due to a fleeting cold snap. Highland venues like Muir of Ord now stand out as rare survivors, their winters temporarily clinging to a colder past.

Unfrozen curling pond in Alford, Scotland

The Science Behind Vanishing Ice

The story behind these closures is a well-documented climate shift. Scotland’s lochs and reservoirs are warming rapidly, with 97% experiencing temperature increases in recent years, at rates of up to 1.3°C per year for some. Warmer winters bring rain instead of snow and erratic freeze-thaw cycles, leaving would-be curlers waiting for ice that never forms.

This is more than mere inconvenience. Thinner, unpredictable ice raises safety concerns and shortens the already-brief outdoor curling season. Increasingly, weeds and algal blooms encroach on draining ponds, further eroding playability, trends confirmed by research from the Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW). Climate-related shifts are projected to intensify, with all regions of Scotland affected by mid-century.

Social and Cultural Vulnerabilities

The decline of open-air curling ponds is also a loss for social resilience and cultural continuity. Each closure means not just the disappearance of a winter pastime, but a diminishment of gathering spaces, local history, and intergenerational transfer of skills. The passionate adaptation of many clubs, building artificial rinks or changing venues, echoes broader questions of how communities must innovate or lose elements of their identity.

What Can Be Done?

While adaptation is under way, from flood-resistant landscaping to purpose-built indoor rinks, the gap left by open-air curling cannot be wholly filled. Managed retreat is evident as investments shift towards indoor venues, there are now 26 ice rinks across Scotland, compared with over 2,800 historically listed outdoor ponds. Some suggest possible futures for restoring local ponds as habitats or community amenities, but the classic winter bonspiel on a wild loch looks increasingly rare.

Conclusion

The shrinking season for Scotland’s outdoor curlers is a vivid illustration of transitional vulnerability, a concept referring to the ways communities, landscapes, and traditions adapt, transform, or sometimes disappear in response to environmental change. As both witness and participant, Scotland’s curling community stands at the intersection of memory, adaptation, and climate policy, strugglling keep heritage alive in a warming world.

References (with links):

1. Climate change affecting Scotland's lochs and reservoirs (gov.scot)
2. Curling in Scotland: A guide to this Scottish sport
3. Muir of Ord curlers make most of freezing weather (BBC)
4. Outdoor Curling and the Grand Match (Scottish Curling)
5. Lost Curling Ponds of West Lothian (Scottish Shale)
6. Historical Curling Places - Database (Scottish Curling)
7. Curling goes outdoors as temperatures drop (BBC)