The biggest snowstorm of the century hit last
weekend. Twenty-four hours after the first cool flake came
drifting down, I stepped outside for a little walk. Hush, hush,
my footsteps shuffled through the foot-deep snow. More snow was
falling. A million tiny, unique crystals of snow fell silently
all
around.
Snow on the roof, snow on the pines, snow on
the twigs of birches and maple, snow on me, and snow on snow.
Ten billion collisions of snowflakes with the forest occurred
every minute, and each was silent. I could have stayed outside
all day, just soaking it all in. More snow, and more, insulated
the world around me.
Next day I went out on the long Fox Trail for
a late afternoon ski. Boughs of spruce and pine drooped under
the load of snow. I skied though a huge soundless, white world.
The quiet of snow enveloped me. Even the small sounds of my
skis sliding along the trail were muffled in the midst of all
that fluffy snow.
Generally, the world we live in is full of
noise. Kids, radios, airplanes overhead, trains in the far
distance, chickadees, blue jays, ravens, grey jays, and even
the tap of the keys on my computer. When I go to the city the
noise is there ALL the time - cars, trucks, snowplows, fridges,
people, dogs, TVs, and just the overall hum of electricity
everywhere.
Being in the forest after a heavy snow brings
welcome respite to the assault of the noise of humanity. I ski
along the trail, my skis reinforcing the shhh, shhh, shhh that
surrounds me. A ruffed grouse pops out from its resting hole in
the deep snow beside me.
We both take a brief look at the other, then
scurry away, each in our own direction.
I measured the snow by sticking my ski pole
in as far as it would go. Seventy-five centimetres deep - and
more snow expected tomorrow. If I were to step off my skis, and
into the soft snow at the trailside, I would sink nearly up to
my hips!
Yet, deep in the forest the "bunny trails"
run. Softly, the snowshoe hares make their way along on top of
the snow. They sink only a few centimetres.
Their small bodies and large feet keep them
up top. As the snow gets deeper, they have more access to the
tender bark of young poplars and maple.
Winter is a good season for them.
Winter is a good season for me too. The snow
lets me get out on skis, and sometimes snowshoes. It lets me
travel across wetlands, and through forests. The snow saves the
imprints of all the wild life of winter, quietly telling the
story of who or what else lives here in the forest.
Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.
