Soothing Artic Envy
Published November 26, 2005 | 
I’m lost at sea
Don’t bother me
I’ve lost my way
I’ve lost my way – radiohead
I must admit it. Each time a read another dispatch from the South Georgia team I feel a bit of envy. Well, not necessarily the “getting rolled in monster waves” part. Oh, well. . Ok even that a little bit. Yeah, it’s the crazy bit in me. I envy the world they get to see around them, and maybe most of all I envy the profound experience. You know they can’t be quite the same when they return. Lucky Bas%*^ds!!
Sitting here in the middle of Wisconsin on the day after Thanksgiving, mother earth offered me a small gift in the form of a fast moving snow storm. By early afternoon the roads were covered and the distant bluffs were lost in a veil of falling snow. By now I’m sure you know what I do when the weather turns foul. . I loaded up my warhorse and raced out to our local lake.
The heavy snow came in fits and starts as I paddled out into the lake. The small lagoon was frozen over so I had to carry the boat down to the shoreline. The water along the shore was covered with a slushly gelatin that stuck to everything and encased my boots as I walked out into the water. I launched upon the black lake and faded into the the silence that only a snowstorm can bring. At times I could see right across the lake and then suddenly I’d be lucky to see the tip of my boat. It was not long before my deck was covered in snow and ice. My GP became frozen to the deck just as my beard was becoming frozen to my face. Layers of ice quickly built up on my paddle adding weight with each stroke. I paddled along the western shore where the glacial talus drops into the water and discoverd all sorts of interesting ice formations along the way. I roamed around aimlessly for an hour or so and by 4 o’clock the world was turning dark blue under the weight of the racing clouds. My fingers began to scream out from beneath my frozen gloves and I knew it was getting time to head back to shore. No events to mention, no wildlife to see, no monster waves to roll me in the frigid water, just a couple hours paddling on a calm snow-filled day. And that’s pretty cool too.
. . . and some pictures. (top gallery called “snow day”)
- d
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2 Responses to Soothing Artic Envy
something to be said for stationary explorations -
seeing the same place again and again, watching how it stays the same, watching how it changes, knowing it better and better -
call it a purely temporal exploration, perhaps?
think sometimes the value that kind of exploration gets overlooked.
Not that I would’ve traded in my BVI’s trip for another week on the Hudson or anything. But someday I WOULD like to paddle the Hudson – I always enjoy the contrast between taking the boat up to Albany and taking the train back down, watching those channel markers unroll themselves in fast-rewind – love to do the same river at paddlepace, too. Wouldn’t be anything new, just new for me.
‘Course there’s the Great Hudson River Paddle but in some way there’s something that appeals to me about maybe doing it solo (please don’t tell the BCU), too.
Ansel Adams spent endless amounts of time photographing the same subjects knowing that they would tell a different story every time. I try to think about that when I go back to the “home lake”. I look for something I missed. Oddly I usually find something.