Ermine Skate opens Midtown Anchorage storefront as founder receives legislative citation

In a packed warehouse space in Midtown Anchorage, Paxson Woelber cut the ribbon on Ermine Skate's new shop Wednesday evening, using a skate the company hasn't released yet.

Ermine makes Nordic skates: long blades with a cross-country ski binding on top. Skaters walk to the ice, clip in and set off across frozen lakes, marshes and lagoons rather than circling a rink. Woelber started the company in 2021, and the Anchorage Assembly called it the first Nordic ice skate company in North America when it named November Wild Ice Skating Month last year.

"It actually feels like it was just yesterday that we started this thing in a little garage in East Anchorage, and here we are, you know, six seasons later in a little, very garage-like structure in Midtown Anchorage," Woelber told the crowd. The new space on West 58th Avenue is both a storefront and a manufacturing shop, and the company said on Instagram it had spent eight months getting it ready.

Before the ribbon came a surprise. State Rep. Ky Holland, joined by Rep. Andrew Gray and Sen. Forrest Dunbar, presented Woelber with a legislative citation that Holland said had passed the House and Senate. Holland read one line from it: "Few individuals have done more to democratize access to wild spaces in Alaska."

"I didn't know any of that stuff was happening," Woelber said. "I thought you guys were just here for the Nerds Clusters and the chips and stuff."

Wild ice is any ice that forms naturally outdoors, on ponds, lakes, lagoons, sloughs and even frozen beaches. Around Anchorage, skaters head to places like Potter Marsh, Rabbit Lake and Portage Lake. Assembly Vice Chair Daniel Volland, who represents downtown and called Woelber "a really good buddy," said it is "the most incredible thing to be out on frozen lakes and marshes surrounded by mountains."

Compared with hockey or figure skates, Ermine says, Nordic skates are warmer, faster and steadier on uneven ice. "If you have friends on hockey skates, for example, they might take like five strides for every one stride you take on a Nordic skate," Woelber told legislators in April. The Wild Ice Skating Club of Alaska, which he co-founded, had nearly 12,700 members in its Facebook group at the time, Alaska News reported.

The skate he used to cut the ribbon at the opening is made of MagnaCut, a Crucible Industries steel that knife companies such as Spyderco and Leatherman use for their blades. Woelber called it, "as far as I know, the world's first MagnaCut steel Nordic skate," and said he plans to launch it this year. The steel is rolled, cut, hardened and ground in the United States, he said, with help from East Coast companies willing to take the time.

"If you're wondering why nobody's done it before on a Nordic skate, it's because it's very, very difficult to work with," he said. "The other reason people haven't done it before is it's really expensive."

He joked that it might not be sharp enough for the ribbon. A cheer went up.

Holland said Woelber had created "an example of Alaska innovation." "This is the kind of work that can be done in Alaska, is being done in Alaska," he said. Manufacturing makes up a small share of Alaska's jobs, about 13,100 of 347,000 in September, according to state labor figures. Woelber thanked his manufacturing partners — "It's been really great, yeah, working with other companies in Alaska and trying to make it work" — and Anchorage retailers including Alaska Mountaineering & Hiking and The Hoarding Marmot.

"This is the kind of energy that Anchorage needs more of," Volland said. Mayor Suzanne LaFrance , who attended the opening and gave a short speech, said the city is promoting winter tourism and looking for ways to use some Anchorage lakes for more outdoor skating.

Woelber called Ermine "still a really small company" and thanked customers for trusting it with their money and with their one day off a week "when the ice is in and they want to get outside."

He'd been up until about 1 am the night before painting a table with his girlfriend, he said. When she asked what he planned to wear, he started laughing and settled on his paint pants, "because it's really true to the moment and the experience of getting this all set up."

"This is all very much a work in progress," he said.