Irena McQuarrie of South Portland skates at Deering Oaks Park in Portland in February 2023. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

When Keith Forest started working for the city of Portland 21 years ago, he had a potato farm in Durham. He started on a curbside recycling crew. To make a good impression on his new coworkers, he brought everyone a 50-pound bag of potatoes. From then on, his nickname has been “Tater.” He now works as a parks facilities technician and is the familiar face of “The Tater Report” on the department’s Instagram and Facebook. He helps maintain the sledding hills and skating ponds in the city, and he started the videos to update people on conditions. He answered five questions about winter recreation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What areas do you maintain in the winter, and what do you have to do to maintain the ice?

We do Payson Park ice, Deering Oaks ice and Ludlow Pond ice. Basically, we wait until there’s a little over 3 inches until we can get onto it ourselves. We start with shoveling and snow blowing. We have a sweeper — it’s like a lawnmower that sweeps. And then we have what’s called an “Ice Dragon,” and that is a pond Zamboni that runs off propane. Deering Oaks, once we have thick enough ice to get on there and the snow is removed, it takes us five or six hours to get that super good, clear finish.

We have signs, and you change the inches of ice on the signs. Once it gets to a little more than 3 inches, you give it a green light and green flags. That’s when we officially open it up and we’re confident that it’s going to hold.

How do you tell how thick the ice is?

We drill it. In Deering Oaks, we would drill seven or eight holes in different places. We don’t just do one, two, three, even four places. We want to make sure the ice is even everywhere. Sometimes people will get on there and they’re having a good time, but we didn’t open it up because there’s some areas where the ice is a lot thinner than others, and then you’ll get a fall through.

Last year, all winter I think we had 10 days of skateable ice on Deering Oaks.

What’s your prediction for winter this year?

I think we’re going to have some really good snow. We don’t have any right now, but I think it’ll turn around. If I’m right, I’ve got a whole video that I made about why. If I’m wrong, we never had this conversation.

What’s your favorite winter recreation?

Oh, boy. I do like the snow hill. I think it’s fun. I enjoy working on the ice, but ice skating, I have learned, is not like riding a bike. You actually forget. January or early February, I put on ice skates for the first time in 30 years. It was like I’ve never been on skates before. I didn’t fall. I used to play hockey when I was young, and I thought it was going to be fun, and I put those on and thought, gosh, this is not what I remember at all.

 

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Is there anything else you would want people to know about being safe on the ice?

The main thing I would like the public to know is that those signs, we do take them serious. It’s no Sebago Lake, it’s not super deep, but if you do fall through, it could really not be a good time. We monitor that ice like crazy. If we’ve got a red flag or if it’s not up to 3 inches on the sign, don’t go on it.