Dear Reader,
I’ve just gone outside to fill the bird feeder, and now I’m enjoying watching the ensuing air traffic composed mostly of chickadees flitting between the trees and my deck. There’s a lovely light snow falling to complete the tranquil scene. Must be time to put the kettle on and see if that red squirrel who has joined the birds won’t mind having his picture taken. I put some seed for him on the rail where it’s easier to get. I think he deserves a celebratory dinner. He’s very lucky to be alive, and although he’s missing half of his bushy tail, he has managed to escape from something very intent on eating the rest of him as well.
Last time I wrote, our winter was less picturesque and more mud. Now things are bright, white, and snowshoe tracks surround my home. This is more like it! The temperature has taken a dive down well below 0°C and I love it. We’ve had a good month of real winter weather and some bona fide storms that made everyone stay home and remember that mother nature is the boss around here. There is even some ice on Lake Huron, though it is much too late to see it freeze over completely. I don’t think I will venture out very far from shore when I am snowshoeing this year. After all, I can still see open water out there.
I only go out a few hundred feet or so where I know it is solid to listen for one of my favorite sounds (second only to the loon call). It happens when the ice shifts and gurgles and …… (how to describe it?). I suppose it sounds like a very low, base note: “Boohwup”. It’s the sound of air trapped beneath the surface and bubbling up to escape from a crack in the ice. You have to stand very still and listen for a few moments to hear it. Last time I was out on my snowshoes I couldn’t hear anything over the wind whipping past my ears.
I had a wonderful time, though, under a bright blue sky that made the ice and snowdrifts sparkle blindingly in my path. I’m afraid I didn’t cover as much distance as I would have liked, since there were so many pictures just waiting to be taken everywhere I looked. It makes for frequent stops and less exercise when I tuck my camera between my many layers of clothing. It may seem silly, but your camera needs to keep warm too. In very cold temperatures, the battery pack will not perform well at all, and I get less than a third of the usual shooting time. Using my body heat to keep the camera warm prolongs the life of the battery. I also like to protect my new Nikon from the blowing snow, which is not kind to digital circuitry, either. I got some great shots, but I did look a little strange with my scarf-wrapped, bulky, SLR camera body stuffed into my already bulky coat.
Ah, but it is worth it. A few days ago, I found myself stopping for nearly half an hour to wait until the sun sank for just the right amount of light over a snowdrift shaped like a cresting wave. Beautiful, and since I had already traveled down the shore and back, I was close to home for a sunset shot. That one is definitely going into a frame.
So far this year, I have been snowshoeing mostly along the lakeshore, but I hope to get back into the bush trails this weekend. Among the trees, animal tracks are more abundant, and there is less wind to blow snow over them. It’s also much better for my overly exuberant furry companion, since I must always keep him on a leash near questionable ice cover. He doesn’t understand that pack ice (ice that is made up of many broken fragments piled atop each other by wave action, and glued together by frozen splashes) can be solid in most places, while shifting where you least expect it. He can explore and have puppy adventures more safely in the woods.
Besides, I haven’t had the chance to get back to my favorite spot lately. It is just nicely back in from the trail and waiting for me, I know, with not a single human footstep marring the snowscape. I have many favorite places, but this one in particular I return to over and over like an old friend. I have been reading a book written by Bob Henderson, and he describes his favorite spots and their history in a way that I think you will relate to easily when you are warming up from a trek in the snow. The title is “Every Trail Has a Story: Heritage Travel in Canada”.
This book is absolutely littered with great quotes from such a variety of explorers, trappers, natives, and visitors from different time periods and different walks of life. It is a complete wilderness experience unto itself, from all angles and using all methods of traditional transportation. Horses, dog sleds, snowshoes, skis and canoes are all incorporated to give you a taste of each of his many sojourns and the history he encountered along the way. There are even maps if you wish to add yourself to the history in these places.
I’ve selected the following passage to remind you of your own favorite spots and to tempt the bookworms among you to find a copy of Mr. Henderson’s book.
“All self-propelled travelers have places that stick in their minds. They come to places slowly… These are places that linger poetically in one’s mind years later and come to the forefront of long distance gazes and imaginative daydreams. One might inadvertently ponder at the oddest times, ‘I wonder what it is like at “X” now. This might explain those blank looks not uncommon to otherwise urban dwellers who are also travelers to Canada’s wild lands.
The Canadian bush, also referred to by Robert Service as the land “back of beyond”, or described by Labrador traveler, Elliot Merrick, as the country “way back in”, is perhaps too immense to be grasped as a whole, but it is a good exercise of the mind to try. Rather, we connect with places; places that allow us to extend our thoughts to the whole of the “beyond” and “way back in”. Each such particular place can be informing to one’s spirit or soul. ….A favorite campsite, a once-visited lake, a hilltop winter view from snowshoes, a particular waterfall, that one portage: these areas are all possible “Xs” that inform. Likely they are places where we have settled, quietly and serenely, allowing the setting to wrap around us. We all have such places that we have internalized at the gut level where the relationship between the beholder and the beheld epitomizes adventure, beauty, truth and mystery.”
And with that, I will wish you Happy Snowshoeing!!
