Here’s the first in a series of Reflections, a new column for this newsletter. Each month, Lynn Kuhns will take a look at the season and some everyday or newsworthy facet of the Fox/Wolf system. You’re invited to consider your own experiences, memories and dreams.
Water: See it Now as Snow and Ice!
What does winter teach us, but to have patience? This year, some would call it faith.
We know that change will come; that seasons always will flow, and the forces of nature will have their way.
We know that all this snow and the ice will melt and find its watery way back to land and sky through summer’s heat, then surely, it will crystallize in winter’s chill again.
That cycle is a critical part of what members of the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance are working to understand, protect, share and enjoy.
Even in a winter like this one.
Consider, for example, that the April 27 cleanup of the Fox-Wolf Watershed is only two months away. Eight quick weeks, and we’ll be putting on sun-visors and sunscreen, working up a sweat, slopping around the water’s edge to grab some of that stuff that shouldn’t be there as we invite Nature and all that wonderful water to breath clean.
But… right now, many shorelines are more like massive, frozen, impenetrable bunkers. The winds are raging frigid… like something real bad is wildly mad at them. The snow swirls crazy over water that’s hidden under its own thick, sometimes groaning ice-skin.
So much change. So now is the time to witness, photograph, maybe play with the frozen waterways in their wintery finest, get up and personal with water’s frozen forms and savor their morphing beauty.
First: Be safe. Check WI DNR site for information about safety on ice. Talk to locals and learn about the ice conditions. Dress smart for the cold – layers, and a back-pack. Consider cross-country skies, boot studs, snowshoes or walking sticks to help you navigate and stay vertical.
Invite a buddy. Always carry a pair of ice picks or ice claws, available at most sporting goods stores, in case you’ll need to hoist yourself up to crawl out on the ice.
Depending on the weather, chances are, you won’t meet many other souls out there. Aside from maybe the whir of a distant ice-auger or the growl of a snowmobile, it’s peaceful out there. Perfect, for some crazy play or quiet contemplation.
So, what do we see? Mostly snow – ice that falls. It can be wet, fluffy, dry-ish, crusted. Some skiers claim mountain snow comes in 22 varieties, including Champagne Powder, Concrete, and Dust on Crust.
Sometimes all that white-on-white seems to sing to us though a deep-cold silence: “This is pure, untouched. This is real beauty. But not for long.”
When it falls on our frozen lakes and other waterways, snow’s character is as vivid as it is variable. On those wide-open spaces, it can interact with the fickle, changing winds, the play of sun and clouds, the many moods of temperature.
And, it tends to do some crazy, fun and artistic things. My favored time is the hour before sunset.
It can pile itself in vast acres of mini-drifts – Soft-Serve-curled little tufts that stir up National-Geographic images of historic polar explorers trudging among such snow for hundreds of miles.
Kick at the snow, and balls of it will go huffing off, bouncing with the wind and leaving wiggly trails until they pile up on some other tuft.
When interrupted by a fallen tree near shore, or a wedge of outreaching land, the snow can drift in big, almost sensuous curves, sometimes curves within curves, with keen edges meeting hallowed hollows. You may see a stream of frozen white-grace, dancing along the drifts’ perfect swirls.
The sun’s light – especially when its low and coming across from a distant shore – will play with the drift with its subtle shadow paints. Cotton-candy Pink glows along the crest as an almost holy hushed blue reaches tenderly in, to tint the shy inside curves.
The winds and time will firm the drifts’ keen edges; re-define them for the next day, then maybe revise their creation again and again.
And yes, spring will come, to warmly soften all things. The snow and ice will all liquefy and rush or seep to find its place in rivers, over dams. in marshes.
We’ll then play different games, take fresh photographs, and enjoy a brighter, more colorful, lively landscape.
And we’ll be buoyed by our faith that something like this — but no, not never, ever, quite the same – will happen next year. And in the years that follow.
Lynn Kuhns, an award-winning free-lance writer and writing teacher with more than 35 years’ professional writing/ publishing experience, lives and writes in Winneconne, WI. Kuhns’ articles often relate to the conservation of Wisconsin’s habitats, health and outdoor recreation, and the interactions of nature and the art of being human. She designs and teaches creative-writing workshops and classes. Contact: writewoodz@charter.net; phone 920-582-0233.
