More Light





That's why





Today another prism hangs in my window. True, the crystal disc splits the low winter light into the familiar reds, purples and greens. But yet they somehow shine with a difference onto the floor and walls.
Words split up like that too. Like Anthropocene. Anthropo means human. Cene means epoch. Apparently that’s the new name for our current time period. Our previous epoch, the Holocene, which began 10,000 years ago, after the last ice age, is now over.
I’m not too convinced of that but at least the weight of last year’s Polar Vortex is over - I think (fingers crossed)! These beauty days of a snowless beginning to December are enough hope for that.
Many times these past few days the lake has shown its magical side. A walk along sand and cobble brings you to the warmth of summer. And before the morning’s first light, the moon turns soft wave foam into silver.




Pink morning clouds over the Bay




This week I had the opportunity to chat with a woman who spent many a Christmas along the shore of Lake Superior. Laurie Penno (Renner) grew up in the Coldwater River /Agawa Bay area, about 150km north of the Soo. In the summer her father Lawrence Renner along with his brother, George, ran a tourist lodge at the mouth of the Coldwater River. Summers were spent playing beside creeks, exploring the shore and one spring she had the company of a pet moose! Before freeze up she and her family boated down to the Agawa Beach north of the Agawa River, where they had a cabin for the winter and were closer to other families.
Penno and I chatted about Christmas in those days. “The Eaton’s catalogue would come out and then the orders went to Frater by the ACR train,” she said on the landline from her home in Iron Bridge.
 “We always went out and cut a tree down,” she said. “Mom had a box of decorations we’d always use. We didn’t have lights cause there was no electricity but we did have tinsel.”
Tinsel or “icicles” are the long stringy decorations a person used to thread over the tree branches, one silvery sliver at a time. Penno used to enjoy holding the thin icicles over her hand and delicately hang them in place, adding a shimmer to the tree.
“I like the way the tinsel moved when you walked by,” she said.
Then she laughed, “But you have to watch your cats! For some reason they like to eat tinsel.”
But we no longer live in the times of no electricity, lightless trees and Santa shipments on the ACR train. And yes , Anthropocene is now the way of things. To survive I guess we'll have to pay more attention to our relationship with nature. And although we can't go back in time, we can use some of the wisdom from those who survived the past epoch. Commenting on the overabundance of today's electronic stuff, Laurie Penno said, " It was much better in those days.We didn't have much but we sure were happier."


Want to share your story? Your ideas and memories of what nature shared with you? I would be pleased to add your voice to the many that have appeared in my column.Contact me the old fashioned way at Box 4, Montreal River Harbour , On, P0S 1H0 or email me at lakefx8@gmail.com and let's chat. Maybe we can put some light into the subject.

Share the light



Biggest waves so far this year ...


                               The morning of  Nov 20.... Still going after an all night blow..





Wave washing




Smoothing it over






To the point


Foam riding









But why?






And Nov 18 ...Two days before..a little warning?




Curly Cloud


                                                  



Storm Stories Nov 11, 2015





November is a conjurer. The word itself is mystical. Feel the name of our 11th month roll around the tongue and an immediate sense of grey, and perhaps grief, massages the thoughts. Remembrance Day, with its images of poppied graves and Lightfoot’s haunted song about the Edmund Fitzgerald enhances the somber mood even more.
But this November is a bit different. It must be the past few glory days of warmth and sunshine. Waves wash cracked cliffs with a lacy spray. And Lake Superior’s power almost seems delicate against the shimmering golden threads of hilltop grasses. The days are precious. You have to rush outside and hug them; hold on tight to something that you know soon will be going.








I’ve been enjoying this November gold by hiking along the bronzed grey trails where leafless trees allow a peek into an otherwise hidden forest world. The magic is everywhere. Even on one of the wet days, when I had to admire the outside from behind rain splattered glass, I found treasure. A yellowed, 60-year-old Sault Star newspaper clipping emerged from one of my paper files. The May 28, 1955 article, written by a Pat McColl, featured interviews with three men who remembered November 1913.That’s when the “worst storm” in Great Lakes recorded history took the lives of 250 people.
In the article, a Captain Raeburn from the Michigan Sault said, “All of a sudden Lake Huron seemed to back into the North Channel. My room aboard ship had a foot of snow in it but at that we fared better than hundreds that night.”
A second man, Sault Harbourmaster Frank Parr added his memory of the storm. “I was a passenger aboard the Winona going to Marquette Michigan. In 36 hours we made a distance of eight miles!” he said. “Needless to say I returned by rail.”
The third interview was with the Sault’s Captain J.W. Alexander. 1913 was Alexander’s first year of sailing on Lake Superior. Only 16 at the time, he was wheelsman aboard the ACR ship the Thomas J. Drummond which was carrying rails to Thunder Bay. That night Lake Superior showed him power that few will ever witness.
“It was the night of November 11,” he said, “and that gale really was the worst ever. Our ship passed the (ship) Palaki off Whitefish Point and I guess we were the last to see her.”
After that gale diminished, people spoke of it as “The Big Blow”, “The Freshwater Fury” or “The White Hurricane”. The storm lasted a long time, whipping up four of the five Great Lakes from November 7 to the 10th. In fact it, was an extratropical cyclone, the result of a collision between two major fronts. Winds gusted to 145 km, waves rose to 11m and snow squalls reduced visibility to near zero. The storm’s deceptive lulls heightened the anxiety. Just as sailors thought the worst was over, the fury raged back again. By the time it was done, besides the loss of 250 people, the storm destroyed 19 ships and stranded 19 others. Two ships, the Leafield and the Henry B Smith, went down in Lake Superior. The Leafield, with a loss of 18 lives, broke up on a shoal off Angus Island near Thunder Cape, Ontario. The Henry B. Smith, along with 25 crewmen, sunk off of Marquette Michigan.
Captain Alexander stayed with the Drummond until 1915 when he enlisted in the army because Canada did not have a navy at the time. After World War One, he sailed on Abitibi tugs and then joined the Royal Canadian Navy from 1940 until 1945. After World War Two, Alexander returned to the Sault to become Marine Superintendent for the Abitibi. The Thomas J. Drummond had her own fate. She went to Canada’s eastern shore to deliver coal from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. But an October 30, 1937 Atlantic storm took the Drummond. She and her crew left Sydney and were never seen again.





Losses from the storm of 1913, the Great Wars or the sinking of the Fitzgerald are embedded into our culture. We remember the tragedies as best we can. We lay wreaths, wear poppies, light fires and cherish bagpipes, hymns and ballads. It's how we grieve. The memories from those who knew such difficult times are a gift, a reminder that humanity can be calm, reflective and gentle...like the soft light of a fine November day.


May 28,  1955 newspaper clipping.






Storm Waves Nov 6 2015





Walk to Awausee

October 14, 2015  The walk to Awausee.




The bear was a good sign. Ward and I saw the dark shape disappear into the trees just as we turned off Highway 17 North to pull onto the parking lot for the Awausee Trail. Should we go any further? The timidity and no further sighting of the black bruin helped us decide that indeed it would be OK to attempt the hike to Awausee’s first look out onto the Agawa Valley.
Mind you, the thought of my left-over-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich in my pack gave me a nanosecond of hesitation. But I did have my Fox 40 whistle to pummel his eardrums if need be; so off we went.


The beginning of the trail follows an old logging road. Sunlight streamed through the yellow- leafed maples giving everything a golden glow. Soon we left the road/trail and began the climb. Thick flat rocks and gnarled tree roots made perfect steps. A dry creek bed with its bare boulders and wide shoulders hugs the trail, a reminder of the power of seasonal shifts. As the ascent increased, the faint splashes from another creek echoed through the forest. My knees talked to me as we got closer and closer to the top. However, I soon met the flatter, smoother, softer walkway of auburn pine needles and rusty coloured cedar leaves (needles?). One more little incline, then a decline and there we were at the first lookout.
The 180 degree, half-a-circle-wide, expansive view was so beautiful it was ridiculous. To my right, silver light shone over Lake Superior. To my left, crimson heads of hunched bulbous cliffs, left over from glaciers, watched over this most ancient of lands. The red and gold hills were magnificent and each of the million trees seemed to be distinct, to have its own say. The sound of rustling dry leaves rose up from the valley floor. Breaks in the tree line marked the path of the Agawa River. When sunlight broke through the rolling grey clouds, the far hills had the texture of a colourful, woolen, handmade, hooked rug.







We ate our sandwiches and the low scudding clouds thickened. Rested, refreshed, renewed we headed back down and got to the truck just as rain began to sprinkle the windshield. Feeling lucky and grateful at the same time, I said thanks... for the trail and for that very interesting, respectful bear.

The Big Feast


Loons enjoy a summer float




Such a place! How did we get so lucky? Perhaps the gods decided to rest here after all.
The joy of our summertime is so compelling. The sun has diminished the woolly weights of winter. The gatherings, outdoor music and picnicking at the beach or the park make us believe we are on another planet.
A great aspect to this summer life is the growing abundance of fresh food. Vegetable gardens are spilling over with local lettuces and sweet green peas. The untamed fruits are promising to be bountiful as well. The wild strawbs were as big as thumbnails. Blueberries are crowding out their bushes. The rasps, atop those stingy, tall, scratchy branches are starting to fatten up. The mountain ash will be heady orange bunches this fall. Saskatoons or Service or Sugar Plums (whichever name suits you), are a purpling tempting treat for humans as well as birds. And with the wild berries come the wild flowers. 










Waving daisy fields and bright yellow roadsides calm and brighten the traveller’s soul. The deep white of winter seems a millennium away.
Time does like to trick us. Combine that with high speed travel and it’s a feat to keep your feet and senses on the ground. This was especially true after recent space photos captured the first close ups of our farthest planet, Pluto - a surrealistic reminder that the earth is not alone.
The universe is LOADED with suns, planets and other galaxies, fodder for a never ending stream of movies and subsequent internet chatter. Conceptualizing how there can be such vast or huge or innumerable (or whatever word humans use) an amount of “stuff” out there often requires some kind of analogy.
The other day as I was walking down a cobble beach, enjoying the gentleness of a calm, sunny, soft Lake Superior summer afternoon I stopped to admire the colours and textures in the rocks. I picked up and examined one after another and couldn’t help but notice something. Some of the rock patterns resembled some of the photos of Pluto. Some of the big round balls of granite even had that heart shape we saw on that far lonely planet. It occurred to me that the countless heaps of beach boulders could be as plentiful as the plethora of galaxies that whirl around our skies. That made it easier to imagine the multitude of universes out there.


A Bud on the beach

Universes don’t have to be far away. Still riding the analogy train, we could say that the area north of the Sault, the land that once held the former ACR passenger line, is another universe too. Four universes actually. In spring, freshly opened lakes and streams are the visible lifeblood for fishes, frogs and other aquatic life forms. In summer, lush tree growth and long lingering days are perfect for the outdoorsperson. In fall, colour feasts overflow with delicious eye candy. In winter, crystal clear starry skies are a silent wonder world against the beautiful white. But those places are becoming almost as hard to access as Pluto! The passenger service has ended. If the writer for the Lonely Planet declared that downtown Sault resembled a ghost town then the old ACR might be the ghost line.

I wonder if anyone has asked CN why it is not in the passenger train business. Freight and passenger trains shared the ACR tracks for 100 years. Surely there must be a compromise/solution somewhere. Can a passenger car be added to the freight train? Google gave me some answers.

 There is one mixed train ( carries freight and passenger together ) in Canada. In Northern Manitoba, the Keewatin Railway Company, in conjunction with Via Rail, operates a 400 km passenger service twice a week between The Pas and Pukatawagan.

So, how about this?
In the spring, offer a couple of camp opening special runs. In the summer, pick a day once a week when supplies and folks can get in and out of camp. In the fall, work with the Tour Train. In the winter, run the Polar Express and the Searchmount Ski Train.
Why do it? Because enjoying our natural gifts is a part of life here on earth. And we learn that after the barbeque is over, it’s been all about sharing the feast.

This is our Only Planet but it doesn’t have to be a Lonely One.






Ahhhhhhhhht last

Ice floes may 20 2015

low berg

how much under water??

May 24 ...Hello says the land.Happy holiday weekend.

The Agawa Dragon

Fiddlin' around

Temple steps

The Watch that Ends the Ice



Watch for disappearing acts. Magicians always get you to look at something while they pay attention to their tricks. Then Voila! Out comes the foolery and you are left wondering how the heck did that happen.

With playoff season all around many wish that there will be magic tricks pulled out of hats. How far can the Hounds go? What kind of magic would that be anyway?





The  2015 ice  follies



One of my favourite magical things is a book. Each one has the potential to be a treasure. A few weeks ago, when I was in the main branch of the Public Library, a display caught my eye. There was a table of old books that no one had borrowed for a long, long time. The display asked people to try one of the possible “discards “. Inside each of the almost cast offs was a thank you book mark. So I picked up a dark blue hardcover from 1959 - Hugh MacLennan’s The Watch that Ends the Night. The MacLennan name threw me back to high school days, however this book was unfamiliar. But I was feeling sorry for the unwanted volume and was glad to help out.



Locked in Agawa April 27





A Sand River run to the beach
What an amazing read. Never mind thanking me - thank you Library, thank you. And after reading it I discovered that the book won the GG award for 1959! The novel centres on pre- WW2 days in Montreal then goes on to the 1950s. MacLennan is a master. The main characters give insight into the thirties that I knew existed but did not have the “feel” of before. The novel put me right into that era. With clear imagery and insightful dialogue to reflect the times, the plot intersects a physically weak but strong willed woman with her wandering, magnetic, doctor husband, a devoted new husband and all the individuals existing between their lives. It was so interesting to read their take on their future, our present. And the comments on their present is now our past. We are not such a new world after all.
By the end of The Watch that Ends the Night I had a fresh perspective on the endings of almost all things. It gave me a different way of looking at the natural world too. We all have been watching the slow return of warm spring and soon-to-be summer days. Our hyper vigilance makes the signs seem more pronounced.  I heard, and then saw, a wavering line of geese trying to keep its V shape. But the quivering lines often collapsed into a rather wavy version of the classic alphabet letter. I felt an angst that echoed ancient roots. There they were so high up, so vulnerable, yet they were making it. 



Sand River makes it  to Lake Superior
And then there’s the lake. A few days ago we woke up to see WATER out front. The next day all the broken bits of ice had returned. The bet is on I hear. May 1st you say? For that bet we should ask the four leggeds. They seem to know when the ice is the weakest or safest. They always manage to gain a bit more ice time. About a week ago, in the very early am before things got really spongy, with the sun lighting up the farthest half of the lake, I saw a wolf trot between the ice build ups about 300 metres from shore. The crunch of my boots hitting the cobbled shoreline startled the wild canine into making a bee line for the far end of the beach. It took about five minutes for the wolf to travel about three km. All I could do was stand and admire.  

Montreal River mouth April 2015

Water  tries to show itself
This week the ice is indeed very iffy - to say the least. Lake Superior is a dark grey, blue and white quilt. Look closely and those chunks are two feet of ice sponge. The ice is decaying from the bottom up. The chunks are so compromised that when you hit them with a rock or poke then with a stick they immediately disintegrate into hundreds of tinkling ice needles. Candling is the name for it and the skinny long icicles make great ice cubes for a cold drink, but not for going on. As a friend says, “It would be like walking on tissue paper.”
So here we are at The Watch that Ends the Ice. We should all get an award this year. It has been a long wait. Right now the ice is old and transparent, resembling my mother’s hands as she was aging. One of these days it will pull a magical disappearing act. But in the meantime what do we watch? The playoffs, the smooth talking pre-election politicians or the real act....the grand flow of life that never stops moving. Keep your eyes peeled. There’s more to this trick than you think.

I'm tree hiding till the snow's gone!

Oh.. For the land


Trees waiting to run


Hey Easter Bunny! Don’t fret. We know how to search for chocolate eggs under the snow. So please keep ‘em coming.
Mind you, I still long for warmer Easter days, the kind where you can see and feel green ground poking out from the snow. On those days, in the city, you can take a bicycle out for a spin on sandy pavement watching out for a puddle or two instead of dodging ice chunks. In the bush you can sit beside an outdoor fire and feel the warm sun on your face while a pot of sap boils itself into sweet, sweet syrup. For those who crave the water it is all about sliding canoe or kayak over snow into the open lake to silently slip through silky smooth water. For those who ply Lake Superior in the freighters or tugs, it is that glorious feeling as you leave the St Mary’s River and head up the lake for another year.




Ice walkers three

Will this sun set?

However, we are not in control of any season, nor can we predict anymore what is about to happen when. Take our sugar bush stats for example. In 2004, just because we could, we made some syrup on Feb 29.  In 2010 there was a warm spring and our first boil was on March 10th. The next year, 2011, things had cooled off quite a bit and we had our first boil on April 2. Then came that crazy 2012. Our first boil was March 15th     and the snow was all gone by March 18th! That’s the year we were worried about lighting an outdoor fire because the bush was so dry. In 2013 the season seemed rather normal and we made our first batch of syrup on March 28th   .
The following winter? KAPOW! We got hit by 2014’s polar vortex. Our first boil was April 7th. And this year, this 2015? As you all know, we got another upper cut to the chin, another whack from the freezies. Oh well. Changes are everywhere.
The environmental changes sometimes affect how we relate to the world, especially if there is a deep desire to experience nature. When some folks can’t get that needed nourishment, drastic things happen to their souls. For centuries this strong sense of abandonment and deprivation has been the subject of poetry, music and other art forms. A new film, a documentary called Lament for the Land blends voices of Labrador Inuit with stunning scenery and illustrates such loss. Researcher Dr. Ashlee Cunsolo Willox interviewed people from five communities in Nunatsiavut, Labrador. That part of Canada is under the influence of a warming trend and the ice is melting along the North Labrador coast. The lack of dependable ice is creating environmental, emotional and cultural impacts on the lives of everyone there. They are unable to get to their traditional hunting and fishing cabins because the sea ice is so unpredictable. Depressed about not being able to get out on the land, the people are experiencing strong emotional reactions – grief, mourning, anger, frustration and sadness. In a 2014 CBC Quirks and Quarks interview with Bob MacDonald, Cunsolo Willox said, “People describe themselves as land people, as people of the snow and the ice and would say that going out on the land and hunting and trapping and fishing is as much a part of their life as breathing.”

Wind ripped snow










That kind of breath is almost sacred. Sometimes you can get a whiff of it when you are walking out on the ice. The sky is a brilliant blue, the ice is humming under your feet and the day is at peace. On a windless day, when the sun is shining and you are out on the frozen lake it is as a friend said, “There’s nothing like it in the whole world. Why would you want anything else?”
Anyone who has experienced the simplicity of nature in such a way can understand the need to seek the bush, to connect with the land. I feel sorry for those who are waiting for word about the ACR passenger train. That traditional means of getting to the bush is in jeopardy. If the train ceases to run for them, ceases to take them into the wonderful wild, what will they do? Depression, frustration, anger? Or as one of the voices in the Lament for the Land film stated, “Guess we are going to have to find another way.”
Ah, ‘tis the nature of life, finding another way. Hey, I’ll bet the Easter Bunny can help. There’s got to be lots of goodies in that basket.



Ice walkers



Feel like heading south? Sick of the cold? Can’t stand the stinging wind one more day? Who knew that we would have to endure ANOTHER polar vortex!

Some folks refuse to be undone and devise a multitude of ways to brave the elements. Like frying fish in a tent at a campsite in Lake Superior Park when it’s -19 (check out lakesuperiorpark.com to see the hot tent video). Others rebel and stay inside to cook up steaming pots of soup. How to survive it all? Well, humour helps. I laughed when I heard last week about a jesting Facebook post from the Nova Scotia RCMP. The faithful horsemen said that Old Man Winter was on their wanted list for causing “numerous highway closures, excessive shovelling and visits to the chiropractor.” I imagine that one could add disrupting water mains and blinding snow storms to the charges. Plus, there must have been complaints about his homegrown recruits, Willie Windchill and Frieda Frostbite. The Mounties warned folks to not approach Old Man Winter because he was “armed with ice pellets” and to protect themselves with sand, a snow blower or salt!

ice tree
But you’d need an infinitesimal amount of salt to eradicate Old Man Winter’s effect on the lake. For, as of this week, ice smothers 90 to 100 percent of Lake Superior. We can see ice on the lake straight to the horizon and beyond. That vast expanse of white is such a compelling surface.
 About a week ago we decided that it was safe enough to hike said ice sheet. Housed in snowpants and woolen layers of insulation under my biggest warmest coat, I ventured down to the icy lake with scarf over my mouth and two pairs of socks in my boots. I walked like the Michelin man. (To get to the lake we have to navigate over drifts and around ice cliffs.) Frieda and Willie terrorized my bare fingers as I released my hands from cosy mitts just long enough to buckle the straps on my snowshoes. 


michelin woman



When we reached the shore of lake Superior, we stood there for a minute, listening to the thundering voice of the ice. The scene was magnificent. The walk was amazing. The sight was pure artistry. Snow resembled mounds of whipped cream. Where the ice was clear, lines and cracks converged to create a beautiful geometry. 



What is all this frozen stuff anyway?  Painters and musicians and poets often offer their insights. Scientists have their interpretations too. They say that pure ice is white with a blue tinge. Well the turquoise hidden in the ice caves affirmed that point. Science also says that ice is a mineral, or at least it has the 5 properties of a mineral. The first two properties are easy to understand. Ice must occur on its own, not be manmade. And no other organism must be able to produce it either. The rink makers, who embrace the frigid nights with hose in hand, know too well that their creations only result from just the right combo of water and temperature. Next, to be a mineral, ice must be a solid. Uhhh..I sure hope so. A lot of ice trekkers and snow machinists are counting on that one. The last two properties deal with chemistry - a finite number of chemical compositions and an ordered atomic structure. Hexagonal crystals put ice straight into the mineral category. Science sure has a hoot analysing this ever mysterious, ever changing substance. Check this out. Under the Antarctic ice field lays the Russian-named Lake Vostok. Researchers claim that the lake has a surface area of about 14,000 sq km and is 670 m deep. (Lake Superior is approx 82,100 sq km and 406 m deep). The Antarctic scientists add other interesting tidbits. They say that 3 km of ice has hidden Lake Vostok from the sun for about 15 million years. Other discoveries include DNA from single celled organisms encased in the ice. Scientists call them extremophiles. Yeesh. I think that some of us feel like we are turning into one of those.

snow cornice
But take heart. Right now Old Man Winter is using the last of his energy to make his getaway. (The Mounties will have to nab their man next year.) The fearless frost maker is heading to the shores of Lake Vostok on a March Break ice diving holiday. After that, he reports back to work in Brazil, Australia and other places south of 0 (aka t
Locked in to the island


But take heart. Right now Old Man Winter is using the last of his energy to make his getaway. (The Mounties will have to nab their man next year.) The fearless frost maker is heading to the shores of Lake Vostok on a March Break ice diving holiday. After that, he reports back to work in Brazil, Australia and other places south of 0 (aka the equator). By then, spring will be making her presence felt here. You will find her sleeping in a sunny window, standing by a south facing wall or luxuriating from a warm windless day on the ice. Ahh. Such is our life. For, indeed, as the slogan goes, “We the North.”







The View this week-before it changed again -






Then there was the silence. Not the enforced kind. Just the quiet that creeps in and before you can whisper, sound is conspicuous by its absence.
As winter tightens its grip, it also loosens at the same time. We get used to hunching shoulders as we go out the door, expecting cold blasts to envelope our senses. Then a moment comes when the air is not so cold, the wind not so harsh -  for a while anyway.
Changes like this come to Lake Superior with an extra surprise. You think the freeze up will be complete, that ice will cover most of the outside world, and then all that becomes undone. These developments are most obvious during the times of ice formation.
At first there isn’t any chance at all of ice covering the lake. Snow and storms don’t settle down enough; these are the days when highway travel is most treacherous and all one is able to do is keep clearing snow. But the lake can’t fight the cold forever. Eventually enough heat leaves, the shore starts to accept ice on the rocks and the frigid dense water finally accepts the weight of the cold.








The first sign that this might be happening is the strange quiet; it’s such a contrast to the din of battering waves.  Then a hair thin skin grows over the water. The smooth surface appears as a lighter colour and, if the wind and the temps stay down, pretty soon this layer stretches as far as one can see. And it remains quiet.
A few days ago on a clear day I looked to the north across Agawa Bay, past Montreal Island to Baldhead , about 25 km. as the raven flies.  The view was amazing! The entire lake was kms and kms of skinny ice. As far as I could see there was no water, just a smooth, light, blue - grey sheet. What fun to imagine a skate but of course that was only a wild thought. This surface calm of ice was not destined to last. However, it was great snowshoeing along the beach and tossing ice pebbles across the hard water.
Then the lake orchestra filed in and took a seat. The ice music is incredible. Crystals tune up their instruments and the symphony begins. A high singing joins the echoing rolls in the distance. It is soooo hard to describe. If you have never heard the sound perhaps this might tickle your imagination.

Pretend you are in a huge gymnasium with ice for a floor. You are all alone, so the only sound is your own heartbeat. Then, off at the far end, a bowling ball begins to roll along the floor, a floor that is 5 cm think and lays over top a huge water chamber.  Echoes reverberate from one end to the other as the large ball moves. Close to you there are the occasional squeals as parts of the floor break and rub up against each other. Or sometimes the whole floor heaves, as if it is breathing. That sound resembles leather creaking and it too echoes as far as you can see. Myriad patterns of cracks and fissures are left behind.



This howl, creak and groan lasts as long as the ice remains as a solid sheet. However very little stays the same for very long. The wind arises, the ice shifts and the whole scene breaks up. Plates of broken ice slide onto the shore in a wild mass of a vibrant turquoise blue. The music turns to a tinkle then a growl. The wind stays up and soon there is no ice sheet, no delicate plates, just a rolling mash. There is no skinny skin, just heaving masses of white that on cloudy days resemble the morning’s oatmeal or sequined lace on the sunny ones. The sound is huge. Gigantic growls fill the air as ice chunks splatter and fly carving a new shoreline out of older ice cliffs. This new surface tightens and the silence returns once more.
One advantage to experiencing such impermanence in lake conditions is that you learn to prepare for all the impermanences in life. Some make you smile. Right now we benefit from low gas prices and interest rates. Some make you cheer. The Hounds are hot and so are the Raptors. While others reaffirm what you know to be true. Ice formations are fantastic and maple syrup, flowers and spring most definitely will be back.

That’s the tune that keeps us going, even if the silence tricks us into believing otherwise.