The UrW Anti-RSI Campaign group. ARSI, for short.

[Bert Preast]

If memory serves, the last time I had to do that I used q for quaff to break the ice then the direction to break it in, then move and repeat.  I had to do about 50 tiles of it to sneak up on a Njerp village, and it was a LOT of key-mashing. 

Handy hint:  If you have dogs, leash them and they will often move ahead and break the ice for you!

[Brygun]

Small matter:

RSI was used as an acronym with no explanation what it is.

I assume its Repetitive Stress Injury

Its a thing when we live in a world where we repeat phrases, engineering or medical or military, to use short forms that anyone in that world knows but not everyone else

[Bert Preast]

Apologies, I thought RSI was well known.  Basically, it's modern parlance for "Getting bloody old" 

[ineedcords]

...This is suggestion is also read and listened, and game courses are something we'll re-think anyway in the future.

Re-reading this thread, I just got an idea:
How about having grandmasters (GM) of certain skills added to the world who can be convinced to teach the player, but only if the player pays them somehow (goods, services) via quests.
After "paying", player gets a learning-speed boost for a certain duration which in turn can help with the anti-RSI effort.

This may also be a useful step towards giving people more things to do in the long run, to avoid boredom as well.

[JP_Finn]

Apprenticeship learning has been around forever. Rather than a single quest or purchase for a boost, make it series of tasks and then after weeks, even months worth of work, give bonus to relevant skill(s).

For cutting a hole in ice with quaff requires declining the option to drink from natural source (after the initial hole is cut), then asks to cut a hole in ice and then direction where to cut the hole. Using {Alt+fishing, then cut hole, one can skip the drinking prompt and the prompt to cut the ice, taking couple key presses off the sequence. And that task is also repeatable.
For thin ice, it's often less fatigue for the character to grab 3-5 slender trunks and throw them ahead to break the ice, pick up and repeat. But that's actually, more keypresses, fatigue for the player.