The story of Kit, the first kids Nordic skate

April 30, 2026

The ideas, design decisions, and manufacturing process behind Ermine’s groundbreaking Nordic skate for kids

My three siblings and I grew up biking, hiking, canoeing, and skiing in the Alaska outdoors. We were hard on our gear, and experience taught us exactly what worked and what didn’t. Those goggles with the disintegrating foam gaskets? Junk. Those one-piece teal Patagonia ski suits? Indestructible (not to mention outrageously stylish). And then there was the gear that could be passed down all the way from the oldest of us to the youngest, and ultimately handed off to the next family. That was the holy grail kids gear: timeless, precious, and rare.

Why build a Nordic skate for kids?

The idea to make a kids Nordic skate came during our inaugural 2021/22 season, when I saw our customers putting kids on our shortest 40cm skate. When I reached out with questions, I was told that kids were having a great time on them. I personally felt that even a 40cm skate was a bit too long, though, and more importantly it was difficult (if not impossible) to get some kids boots positioned correctly over them. This posed the first obvious problem: 40cm was about as short as we could make a skate without a standard binding hanging off the back.

Two things were clear. First, that kids loved Nordic skating and there was at least some market for a kids skate. And second, that adult skates and adult bindings wouldn’t cut it. Ermine would need to develop a new type of Nordic skate just for kids.

Over the next few seasons, Ermine focused its energy on scaling up and building capacity for our main runs of skates. We launched the first Xplore-compatible Nordic skate, and developed our burly Williwaw wind skate. But the kids Nordic skate remained in the queue, politely waiting its turn. Finally, a number of factors converged and it became apparent that the 2025/26 season was the right time to launch. We were in the process of completely revamping our production pipeline, and finally had the manufacturing capacity and talent to properly develop this new product category.

What makes a kids Nordic skate a kids Nordic skate?

The design philosophy was driven by four principles:

• Ermine’s kids Nordic skate must be built to the same high standard as our adult gear. Kids can rapidly develop skills and become power users. A kids skate can’t be treated like an introductory product, it must be a capable tool for capable (if younger) people.
• A kids skate must accommodate a range of kids boot sizes, so that the skate can grow along with the skater.
• From tip to tail, design elements must be optimized for the way kids handle and use the product.
• Nordic skating is fun, and the design of the skate must reflect and celebrate that.

Design process

We decided to build our kids skate off of our rugged and reliable A Series platform, which was undergoing its first major overhaul. This meant that our kids skate would be able to piggyback off of the upgrades we were making to this line, including an improved extrusion, improved machining quality, upgraded coiled spring pins, and substantially better blade steel. Yes, our kids skate would be a new product, but it would be built on years of experience, testing, and refinement from our adult line.

Next up: bindings. This problem, fortunately, was fairly easy to solve. In fact, we’d solved it several seasons prior and had already purchased a few dozen Prolink Access Jr. NNN bindings in preparation for this project. These bindings were otherwise identical to adult NNN bindings, but had a shorter heel plate with an optional extender.

With a Prolink Access Jr. binding and the shop’s trusty Japanese calipers in hand, it was fairly straightforward to develop a Jr. version of our new “Salmonshark” binding mounting pattern. The combination of Prolink Access Jr. bindings and the new Salmonshark Jr. mounting pattern allowed us to precisely center virtually any size of kids boot over a small 37cm skate.

Turning to the overall design, we removed angles that would be uncomfortable to handle or fall onto. The rounded corners that resulted from this process were functional, but also lent the skate a distinctive and ever-so-slightly space-age style. We decided to coat the skates with the same high-end polymer-ceramic finish we used on our adult line, and selected three fun colors: a true blue (big blue sky), a light pinkish-purple (little purple flower), and an electric green (electric moss) that fluoresced under a blacklight. The coatings were modified as needed to make them glossier, making them less susceptible to stains and easier to clean.

Last, Ermine’s new kids skate needed a name. I called my friend and longtime skating buddy Daniel Volland, who often provides Ermine with design advice. The answer was immediate: what’s a juvenile ermine called? A kit. Oh man… perfect!

Kit is born!

It was incredibly rewarding shepherding Kit through the production process. After years of working on adult-sized skates, these new skates felt surprisingly light and playful, even as they were just bouncing around our workshop from one station to the next.

After a final round of testing, Kit officially launched on November 7, 2025, making it the first ever free-heeled Nordic skate for kids. This was without a doubt one of Ermine’s most exciting milestones.

Kit was received very well, though buzz was initially out of proportion to actual orders. People take time to adjust to a new product, and often have to see it a few times (or see it out on the ice) before taking the plunge. Even though we priced Kit significantly lower than our adult skates, we understood that this was a big purchase. Luckily, sales picked up throughout the season, and by March we were regularly sending Kits out into the world. We ended the season with just a few pairs left in inventory.

Playing with Kit in the Mat-Su Valley. Photos courtesy Kristin Drenzek

Kit grows up

Overall, bringing Kit to market was a huge success for Ermine. Reviews of the product were excellent (my favorite was only three words: “best skates ever!”). Internally, Kit was solid evidence that our new manufacturing process was dialed in and could bring a new product from concept to completion with virtually no hiccups. And perhaps best of all, Kit marked a meaningful contribution from Ermine to the Nordic skate industry and the sport as a whole.

Looking forward, Ermine plans to keep Kit as a core part of our Nordic skate line. For the upcoming season, we plan to make several minor updates to the original Kit design and launch Kit2. But even as we continue to update and refine Kit, I hope that the original Kits remain out there: heavily and happily used, passed down from one sibling to the next, and finally on to the next family.”

- Paxson Woelber has been a dedicated Nordic skater and advocate for wild ice skating since 2016. In 2021, he founded Ermine Skate, North America's first Nordic skate company. Today, Ermine offers a range of premium Nordic skates and Nordic skating products designed for wild ice.