Heading out for one last paddle

December is a time of dramatic change in the bush. The browns of autumn are suddenly changed to the whites of winter with the first heavy snowfall. The lake I cross with caution in the boat on the first of December I’ll cross by snowmachine on the first of January without a care.

The freezing of the lake holds the most magic for me. Every year I am entranced by this natural phenomenon. Freezeup is different every year, but in many ways it is just the same.

Late in November, the little bays freeze over. As December days get shorter and the nights colder, ice appears over a little more of the surface each day. Wind and waves push it back again.

The next night a bit of the lake freezes again. Then the wind and waves push it back again, but not quite as far this time. Some years it takes four or five weeks for the whole lake to freeze over.

The first new ice forms as a crystal clear sheet. If the weather stays cold and clear, it can get very thick. Walking along the shore I can see through to the lake bottom as though I were walking on glass.

It is mostly just rocks and old sunken trees that I see through this glass, but it is fascinating nonetheless. This clarity doesn’t last for long though. The very first wet snow to fall will take the view away.

I managed to get out in the canoe the day before the whole lake froze over in 1988. A solid sheet of ice four inches thick had formed for a hundred yards along the shore. Wind had broken off all the thinner ice and it melted away.

I love canoeing in December. I carried my canoe across the thick ice, tipped one edge into the water, then stepped in and pushed off.

The water was freezing, quite literally. Long, thin ice crystals were floating on the water all around me. I paddled to the end of the bay and took a long, last look at the deep blue water on lake for this year.

It was nearly dark by the time I headed back home. I paused at the beaver’s house for a while. One beaver was on shore, bringing in one more branch for the winter feedbed.

Another beaver in the water spotted me and splashed. I could hear two more beavers in the house chattering away.

Every now and then the beaver in the water would break through the skim of new ice and have another look at me.

I finally decided it was time to get home. I paddled noisily though the skim of new ice. It took more than twice as long to paddle the last half mile as it had the first.

When I reached the thick ice again, I sat in the back of the canoe and paddled hard, pushing the front of the canoe well up onto the good ice.

I was home again, and finished canoeing for at least five months.

Viki Mather has been writing for Northern Life since the spring of 1984. During 2010, she takes us back to some of those older writings as she prepares to publish a book of In the Bush. This one was originally published in December 1988.