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Environmental
Stewardship Commission
(MEESC) |
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Environmental
Stewardship Commission
(MEESC) |
|
Skiing Burntside
by the Rev Roger Weaver
Like the large snow flakes drifting down, the November days settle in filling the nooks and crannies with silent coldness. The river is frozen. Everything is now fixed for the next five and a half months. This is the time we become water walkers striding over the surface of rivers and lakes like gods. "No limitations here!" We can walk wherever we want. Add skates or skis or even a good ski-touring dog to the dream and even flying becomes thinkable. That's surface living, of course. We're sustained by this almost transparent fixed water. Beneath it is the other reality, and water reigns. Quite often the water breaks through to let us know that our freedom is just a fleeting fancy. It seeps up and outward to transform our snowshoes into rock weights and our skis into friction boards. Winter can do that easily. It can take the high flier and show him terror with just a snap of breaking twig.
A couple of years ago, Darrel Swenson and I got a glimpse of those two worlds while skiing the North Arm of Burntside Lake. It was a beautiful day; a bright sun gave warmth to a day slightly above zero. We climbed the long slow hill splitting the giant white pine to the plateau that extended several kilometers before its slow descent to Coxey Pond. We decided to ski the larger loop down to the pond, traverse its length and return on a trail that was parallel to the one approaching the pond. It wasn't long before the warmth of the day and the exercise had us sweating and removing jackets, hats and gloves. What a glorious day! How good it was to be freely sliding through the exquisite pine forest. Skiing North Arm today was a marvelous idea, and we descended the hill toward Coxey Pond.
As we came upon the pond we noted the tracks going off in two directions. One led directly out onto the pond and traversed its length down the center. In case this is the first time you have heard of Coxey Pond, I should tell you that it isn't a pond. It is a lake. It is about a mile long and three quarters of a mile wide. Now, the other set of tracks went off along the shoreline.
Remembering the slush back home on the river, we chose the trail long the shoreline. It added another half mile or so to the trip. As we moved out away from the shelter of the shore we became immediately aware of the stiff wind coming across the sweep of the lake. It took away any warmth the bright sun had to offer. Quickly our jackets, hats and gloves were put on. It didn't help much. We needed to move to exercise, to get into that rhythm. We were into slush within a hundred feet. With slush you try to find a way out of it, and then finding that high spot or solid spot or that spot still fixed, you take off your skies and scrape off the ice. When they're clean of ice you put the skis back on and try to find a route without slush. Failing that, you once again try to find the solid spot, take skis off, scrape and so on.
This was not freedom, this was the fear of becoming fixed with the surface. The world of warmth, freedom and joy was gone. On Coxey Pond we were engaged in "just getting across"; it was very cold, windy, and miserable, if not even life threatening. We didn't talk much. I think we were glad that we weren't out in the middle of the lake, we might have talked about that, but basically we determinedly made our way along the shore until we came up on the trail heading back. We entered the trail and again, and ever so quickly we returned to the world of freedom, warmth and joy. Our confidence soared as we descended from the plateau and made our way to the car.
The Rev. Roger Weaver is a retired priest of the Diocese of Minnesota. His last congregations, the East Range Episcopal Congregations, are located on the Iron Range and covering most of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. He originally wrote this article in December 1997 for the East Range Epistle (a newsletter of the East Range Episcopal Congregations). He and we welcome your comments. Please address your comments or additional reflections to Roger Weaver or any MEESC member, or mail them to:| MEESC
Holy Trinity Church Box 65 Elk River, MN 55330-0065 USA |
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