A good ice year

Each fall we watched the sky and the water in the slough which filled the sloping coulee that ran half a mile wide and two miles long in front of our farm. Would the ice be good? A good ice year meant racing down from the school bus and lacing up skates sitting on the straw bales in the frozen rushes, as the wind churned and whistled through the scant spruce and groves of poplars. A good ice year promised skating parties and hockey games, with bonfires right out on the ice to warm frozen fingers and toes, and hot chocolate and hot dogs to burn our tongues. Good ice is an alchemy of the elements—air temperature, wind, water, and soil. A clear sheet of ice is created on the slough when there is a fast temperature drop overnight, when there is no snow to pebble the surface, there is enough water in the slough to cover the grass and algae, and there is no wind to blow the topsoil from the field onto the surface. In a good ice freeze, the Canada geese are shocked by their rapid overnight loss of water and resort to the air, heading south. It is also fortuitous, but not essential, that it not snow for several weeks, so there is no energy wasted on shoveling rather than play. Good ice, according to the engineer father, required only 1 1/2 inch before access was safely allowed on skates. As there was usually some anxiety for the required ice depth to be reached, the mother insisted the engineer father test his 1 1/2 inch theory. Whereupon he would often return wet to the knee on one or both legs, and the event would be delayed for another week. Events colluding, it would be a good skating year. We would skim on a window of ice stretching shore to reedy shore as the full harvest moon was rising in the east, and the west was a slash of azure and crimson and arching chinook wind. Below, we could see the green fronds of a frozen underwater forest, and the miracle of a muskrat swimming as it raced for its breathing hole in the reeds. Skating, streaking, slipping in bold swings of arms and legs akimbo, we headed to the west end, a mile from home. We realized how far we were as the coyotes yipped and sang from their den under the slab of sandstone in the cow pasture. Racing my brother, I turned for home. I opened my parka, held wide in my hands like sails to catch the steady blow of the chinook and it pushed me back at a breathless speed. My whole body was frozen clean through—ears ringing, fingers fumbling, lungs gasping, toes numb. I clumped up the hill with my skates on, digging into the lawn for purchase, then stumbled inside to unlace my skates with tingling fingers. Read more from Corrine: My nights at the midnight circus Corrine’s story is the eighth entry in our reader writing contest. Thank you to everyone who has submitted stories, blogs and poems. Each week we’ll publish one reader’s entry and in March, the editorial staff of CanadianHealthcareNetwork.ca will choose three winners for a grand prize of a $500 gift card and two honourable mentions for $250.

A good ice year

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