Trail Time – The lakes are singing!
The lake has been singing. Day and night, we hear the groans and growls and booms of the lakes’ winter music, even when in our cabin with all windows closed tight against winter’s cold. The singing ice is one of the gifts that winter brings to help us withstand the freezing temperatures and other challenges of winter life. Like whale songs, the sounds travel far, making ethereal, sometimes eerie, music. The scientific reason for the singing is that the ice contracts when it warms up and expands when it gets colder. Under the ice, there is still liquid water, and as it moves it creates vibrations that carry to us as sounds through the air. As ice melts and re-freezes. it also causes vibrations. When the ice is clear, with no snow on top, the ice makes high-pitched pinging noises. With snow acting as a dampener, the noise is a lower frequency.
If you throw a rock on top of clear ice, you hear a noise like light sabers from Star Wars movies. The reason for that is that high-pitched sounds travel more quickly than low-pitched sounds. That’s called acoustic dispersion. That’s what makes the peowwww! sound. A few years ago, we had perfect ice form on the lake — an almost solid and smooth sheet of ice perfect for skating. The sounds as we skated on the frozen lake were other-worldly. You could almost feel the vibrations through your skates as the noise spread out then bounced back from the rocky shore.
Different cultures around the world have folklore about songs of the ice. From Nordic lands we have tales of the water spirits, called Nixies or Näcken who play enchanting music to lure people to their ice caves guarded by fairies. From Romania, ice fairies and spirits guard Scãrišoara Cave, and make whispers or sing from the depths. In Russia, the ice sounds are said to be Baba Yaga’s frozen laughter. Closer to home, there is the Ojibwe tale of Shingibiss, who was either a merganser or a brown duck, depending on the translation. Shingibiss had four logs of firewood to last the winter, each one good for a month of burning. The Winter Maker tried to scare Shingibiss, but the little merganser kept himself well in the winter by pulling up reeds from blue flag at the water’s edge so he could dive below to get fish to eat. And at night he sang by his fire for courage. He used the lessons his grandmother taught him to live well all winter. I like that story. I found it online, and I hope I am using it properly, since there is such a wealth of native stories that have been appropriated by our predominate culture. In the Ojibwe culture, there are certain stories that are reserved for winter only. I think this might be one of them.
Last winter was my first tough winter up here, so I am collecting stories and books and ideas for how to live well all winter long. The story of that little brown duck is so helpful. And I’ll make a point of singing by the fire to build courage. Winter can be beautiful of course but it sometimes can be scary. It is good to respect the dangers of winter, but we can still have fun outside, even if we are no longer children.
I remember when I first started winter camping. I realized I was afraid of the cold and it took a great deal of courage of sleep outside in a sleeping bag that first time. There was a group of us from the Twin Cities and we prepared for weeks for our camping trip to the Sawtooth mountains in Idaho. The trip was coordinated through the American Lung Association. We had all raised money for the ALA and this trip was the culmination of our fund raising. Kelly Dupre, formerly Bowden, formerly of Grand Marais, was one of the leaders. She was amazing and taught me a lot about winter camping. Your head is a chimney so wear a hat. Dress like an onion, in layers. Cotton is rotten (because cotton absorbs sweat and holds it next to your skin, sucking the warmth out of you). Kelly could also ski uphill, something I had never seen. There wasn’t any cross-country skiing in Maine, where I grew up. So that was a whole other thing to learn from my new hero.
Before the group of winter campers left for Idaho, we had a shakedown night at a regional park near the Twin Cities, where everyone could try out their gear. I had two down sleeping bags — one stuffed into the other for extra warmth. That was good. But everyone laughed at my purple moon boots, so someone lent me a pair of Sorels, someone else lent me a water bottle that didn’t leak. We all laid out our sleeping mats (the thicker the better) under the stars in one long line. I woke in the middle of the night in a panic and far too hot! I struggled like a wild woman to find those two zippers to unzip and as I sat up, I looked down the long line of lumpy sleeping bags and thought “wow! this is me! I’m sleeping outside! I’m hot! It’s winter! This is crazy!” I felt the same after I woke up in Idaho that first morning. I stood and stared into a valley with snow-covered conifers lining either side, amazed that life could be so good living outdoors in the winter.
— Marcia Roepke
