Change of seasons dramatic in north

Who would think that just a week ago there was five inches of snow on the ground? It’s not the first time we’ve skied on April 20. A few days of warm weather put that to an end, and I started picking daffodils from the greenhouse.

Last weekend I crossed the ice for the last time this spring. There was a foot of ice, melting from both top and bottom. That was down from two feet of ice the week before.

With the nearest road at least six kilometres away, crossing the lake is how we travel (once the snow has gone from our winter trails).

The big question every spring is when it will be unsafe to cross. Should we stock up on groceries this week or next?

The morning of the “last safe crossing” was April 24. We took a little stroll on the ice before breakfast. The overnight temperature of -3 C provided a rock-hard surface on the ice.

Allan and I wandered for an hour or more here and there, poking the ski pole through cracks and measuring the thickness of the ice. There was a minimum of 12 inches, and a max of 15. Lots of ice.

That evening we went for another walk – but a short one. The sunny day had softened the ice, and thinned it a bit. We didn’t walk side by side as we had in the morning.

The ice creaked with every step in some places. We tried to avoid those places. Mostly it was the darker ice that made noise when we stepped there. Allan poked a hole and found nine inches of ice, “candled” all the way through. He pulled up some of the long, thin crystals of ice with the basket of the ski pole.

We gingerly found our way back to land at a spot where the ice held strong, right beside the bedrock of home. That last step onto land was a comforting one.

The shoreline that catches the afternoon sun has been steadily melting away for more than a couple of weeks now. By the time we took that last step off the shaded ice on April 24, there was 10 feet of water showing around the island out front. The northeastern shore also had a ribbon of water along the shallows there.

By the end of April, I’ll be canoeing along that strip of water between ice and shore. Hard to believe. Skiing on April 20, canoeing by the 30th.

This is the miracle of life in the north. The change of season form winter to summer is so very dramatic.

I am anxious to get out in the canoe, and yet, I’m sorry to see the ice go. There is such freedom in being able to just step onto the lake and go anywhere, everywhere. I’ll miss it.

Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.