Dear Reader: What a beautiful day! The warmth of the sun grows stronger now, and it feels so good on my face. I am outside without a coat for the first time this spring, and I can get away with it a little while longer since the late afternoon rays have been heating up the deck nicely. The snow has melted here leaving the wood dry and warm, even in my sock feet. Below me, on the ground, is a different story. The big drifts piled there by the wind take weeks of mild weather to shrink, and though the ice has broken up, I can still see floes all the way to the horizon line. Winter hasn’t quite left us yet.
It is nice to hear the lake again though. Gentle lapping on the shore and between the roaming chunks of ice, along with the call of seabirds returning home reminds me to get out on my snowshoes quick, before winter is gone. I am always amazed at the gulls’ timing. They seem to have some alarm that let’s them know the exact day the ice will give way to open water. So the two sounds are linked in my mind, and the first time I hear water is usually the first day I will find gulls on our shore again. They are having a good time today, at least I imagine they are, spiraling way up there on some air current high enough that they are just white dots from here.
We get very accustomed to the stillness of winter, and the sudden burst of so much noisy life tends to take us pleasantly by surprise. There is always that one day when you go outside and everything is either melting or multiplying. There is a certain lack of nip in the air. Everywhere you hear dripping as well as the occasional “thunk” when gobs of snow or icicles fall from the roof or from their precarious positions in the treetops. Geese, gulls, and gadflies will all be here together again. Oh, and who could forget the blackflies that will soon be ruining it all? (Nature’s blood-thirsty spring party-poopers.)
With such a short winter this year, I haven’t even had a chance to come down with a case of spring fever. (I am not really anxious for scraping and painting season to begin, though I have lots of that to do.) Some people call it cabin fever, and I think that’s a more apt description. Spending lots of time outdoors in winter will prevent the cabin walls from closing in or that restless feeling from ever beginning at all. As I told you before, happiness can be found on your snowshoes! They are an excellent way to change your perspective, literally. Everyone needs a change in perspective once in awhile. I especially enjoy how different everything looks from atop my snowshoes, and atop a big snowbank. I might be eight or ten feet above my normal vantage point at any other time of the year. I look at nests and the tops of trees instead of their obscured trunks and roots. It’s a great thing to experience a new viewpoint, even if it is in the same spot you’ve come to a hundred times. Just a couple weeks ago, I could have walked to a place that now requires a boat to get to. There’s a tiny cabin on the island that was so covered in drifting snow you could walk right up on the roof. How’s that for a new perspective?
Looking back on my snowshoe adventures this season, I am happy to say that I have more miles under my belt than any year since I discovered my snowshoes. I have even spread the snowshoe bug to my mother, who now owns a pair. She went for her first snowshoe trip with me on the Bruce Trail up along the Niagara Escarpment, which it turns out is just as beautiful as in the summer. We only went for an hour or two, but it was really lovely. We found squirrel, mice and rabbit tracks all over the ground below the hardwoods, and were serenaded by a gang of chickadees. I think she’s hooked.
I have to say though, we met a guy talking on his cell phone while on the trail, and I couldn’t help thinking; that must totally ruin his experience. I hope none of you bring your entanglements with you, or at least that you turn them off. Snowshoes are for escaping, am I right? Being unreachable can be a personal achievement these days. (Well, maybe I shouldn’t judge. As the last person in the world who doesn’t own a cell phone, I have no trouble leaving behind what I don’t have.)
With all the snowshoeing I got in this year, I think I have also made great improvements with my health and stamina. Though I still have a long ways to go before I can say I am in shape. I got a little ahead of myself last week and ended up with a sort of snowshoeing hangover. It was a couple days until I had any energy whatsoever. I started out with big ambitions to get far down the shore, and I had enough coffee to believe that the small island coming up just around two points south was not that far away. Well, true I made it there, but on the way home something happened to make my snowshoes, feet and legs get soooooo much heavier. My pace slowed to reflect this development. Note to self: always make sure you have enough fuel to get home again, not just to the destination, particularly if you are without camping equipment. I had to keep stopping to rest while watching my dog pounce on all the unsuspecting snowdrifts in his path. Then, get my leaden feet moving again toward home. I suppose the longer trips will have to wait until next year when I hope to be stronger yet.
Even when I am not forced to rest, I definitely do enjoy taking it slow. There’s a lot to be said for wandering aimlessly. I sometimes take a little book in my pack with me and make a pit stop somewhere for my thermos contents and to read a few pages until I get to the bottom of it. If you do this while snowshoeing, the one book you should take with you is a nice little pocket copy of Henry David Thoreau’s “Winter Walk”. He describes winter foot travel in a way that makes it seem like poetry, and he is practically the founder of the nature-walking phenomenon. The following passage is a prime example:
“What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter’s day, when the meadow mice come out by the wall-sides, and the chickadee lisps in the defiles of the wood? The warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, as in summer; and when we feel his beams on our backs as we are treading some snowy dell, we are grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun which has followed us into that by-place.”
No one says it better, and today on my deck I know just how he feels. Winter makes us slow down to appreciate the simple pleasures, and simple pleasures are the best kind. So here’s hoping you are somewhere enjoying the sun on your face with the wind at your back, and listening to the sounds of spring meltwater finding its way from under the snowbanks out to the creeks and rivers.
Sincerely,
SRW
