An Easter Monday walk on a frozen lake. Click to enlarge pics.
An Easter Monday walk on the ice of a frozen lake isn’t an unusual occurrence in the north country where I live.
I’ve got a huge amount of respect for vast bodies of H2O and you normally wouldn’t catch me trying to walk on water, but the frozen winter climes of the north country allow even folks like me to do just that with complete safety and peace of mind; as long as you remember to bring along a dab of common sense in the form of a rifle over your shoulder to take along for any trek of this nature in the Spring, when the bears are beginning to wake up hungry and sometimes a little ornery.
I prefer to calmly and respectfully talk them before I’d ever consider dropping one, but the prudence of common bush sense means I’ve always got the final deciding factor close at hand if it’s ever really needed.
Me, the pack, and the common-sense rifle heading off down the lake.
My wife and I wanted to go see how our summer camp had fared over the months of winter so far, and decided we’d try accessing it via the lake by walking along the snow-covered ice near the shoreline in the company of our tough little girl dog Seew, whom you see me stopping to play with for a few moments in the picture below.
Me and Seew taking a few moments for some serious "tug-on-glove" play time.
We already knew that this would not only provide us with a great excuse for a wonderful outing on an absolutely gorgeous sunny day, but also be far easier than attempting a slog through the two or three feet of snow still occupying the trail into our camp.
Usually the snow pack on a lake surface has been wind scoured and packed tight by that scouring making it much easier to walk on without snowshoes, and such was already the case this day.
The fact that numerous skidoo trails had also followed the same course as we intended made the walk that much easier, because any trail already broken by a skidoo always packs the snow down even tighter and freezes hard, leaving a good walking surface in its wake.
You can see the truth of this statement for yourself in the picture of my wife standing on one of those trails in the picture of her waving to the camera to say ‘Hello’.
In a rare appearance before the camera, my loving wife standing on a skidoo trail on the ice waving to say 'Hello'.
Arriving at camp confirmed the validity not only of our decision to walk the ice route but also that the snow was still indeed very deep at camp itself, precluding any attempt to enter the structures standing there.
But that was okay with us since everything appeared to still be in a state of good repair after having survived the winter snow load placed on it, so we simply turned around and headed back again.
As easy and invigorating as I’ve made it sound it still proved to be a tiring workout for us all by the time we returned to our vehicle. Despite having four legs to run around on as opposed to our longer two each, little Seew’s four short ones were pretty much bagged out by the excursion and she was quite content to use them a final time to climb into her warm back-seat doggy basket for the ride home.
Reflecting on those activities while driving home that day, I found myself smiling with contentment for having taken an Easter Monday walk on the ice of a frozen lake in the company of my own little family of three.
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