‘Wintertime is pure joy’ for children

Like it or not, winter has set in for the duration. I hope you do like it, since it will be here for at least another three months.

Having a three-year-old around sure makes it easier to enjoy the snow. That is, after a 10 minute fight to get her snowsuit on. Our daughter absolutely loves the outdoors. The deeper the snow, the better.

Last year we bought the smallest pair of snowshoes in the store for her. At two, she could only wear one at a time, because they were bigger than she was. It was easy to see where she had walked; her tracks in the snow were strange indeed. But she had fun, and that’s what counts.

This year she is bigger than the shoes. She wears both at the same time and walks around as comfortably as a duck in sand. Her first couple of times out were just around the yard before the snow got very deep. She concentrated very hard, watching each snowshoe move forward, making sure she didn’t step on the other one.

Our first big snowshoe expedition was on the lake. Walking is easy because there are no hills to go up or down. Once we got to the shore on the far side though, she had second thoughts about continuing.

From her viewpoint of 37 inches, the shoreline hill looked impassable. But with a lot of encouragement from me and a helping hand, she was soon following my tracks through the woods.

Downhills looked even scarier than the ups to our daughter. She sat to slide down the first hill (one foot drop over three feet running). On the next hill I gave her a hand again.

That was all she needed to gain confidence. By the time our trail curved around toward home again, she was in the lead. Now I followed in her tracks.

For little kids, wintertime is pure joy. Bundled up in layer upon layer of warm clothing, they throw themselves into the snow. They run, jump, roll and crawl through the stuff.

And when they get tired, they just lay down where they are for a two minute rest. The really nice thing about a kid’s joy of winter is that it is contagious.

I followed our daughter home as we snowshoed across the lake. The cabin was only a hundred yards away from where we came out of the woods. I asked her if she wanted to go home, or if she would like to snowshoe for a while longer. She opted to go home. So I said, “OK, I’ll keep following you.”

She walked happily along, looking back now and them to be sure I was following her tracks. Two minutes later we were further from the cabin than before. I asked if she knew which way was home, to which she replied, “Yes, it’s this way,” pointing directly opposite the cabin.

I said, “But I can see our cabin right over there!” To which she replied, “Yes, but the trail goes this way.” And indeed it did. The “trail” went this way and that, and around again but not quite. Whenever we came close to crossing our own trail, she turned again.

I think as adults, we too often take the shortest distance between any two points. Our children have a lot to teach us about the joy of just being outside.

Viki Mather has been writing for Northern Life since the spring of 1984. During 2011, 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 1989.