THE VOICE IN THE ICE

With just one week to go before the winter solstice, and the frantic holiday pitch building to a frenzied crescendo, November is now nothing but a blur to me. The winter wind continues to etch itself indelibly into my daily routine and is one of the few sounds to break the silence of winter along with the occasional great horned owl and coyote call.

But yesterday, in a very unlikely place, I encountered another voice of winter: the lake. After a bone-numbing cold spell marked by daytime temperatures that barely reached -10 Celsius and nighttime temperatures that plummeted to -15 Celsius, the lake froze over. 

Yesterday, late afternoon, the temperature rose to a balmy 4 degrees-Celsius, the air was still and it was perfect conditions for happy hour on the beach with a bonfire. As usual, I was first at the fire with my glass and bottle of wine. I settled myself in front of the roaring fire and as I listened to the snap and crackle of the burning wood and sipped my wine, I heard something else--a long, slow, rumbling groan resonating from somewhere nearby. 

Unsure what the sound was, or where it was coming from, I looked around me, but there was nobody or anything remotely near to where I was sitting. Over the ensuing 10 minutes I heard the incredibly loud sounds over and over. The sounds ranged from a low, belly-aching groan to a high, fast-paced swoosh. At this point, Mark joined me and as he sat down a giant boom and swoosh enveloped us. Mark, looking as a child would who had just discovered the magic of Christmas, exclaimed “It’s the lake, making noises”. 

Bev and Lanny joined us and we sat and listened to the lake stretch and yawn as the waxing moon rose in the sky above us. As darkness descended, a band of coyotes on the fringe of the lake joined in and the lake chorus sang loudly all around us.

Geologists have a name for this acoustic phenomenon: ice yowling. Yowling is described as low, drawn out moans that are very reminiscent of whale calls. A YouTube search on “ice sounds” turns up a dizzying array of recordings, though none of the recordings sounded exactly like our lake.

Our neighbor Bev has been at the lake for many years and is most familiar with the voice of the ice. As ice expands and contracts, it causes stresses through its depth and across its breadth. These stresses cause the ice to crack and refreeze. The sounds of this cracking and refreezing are transmitted through the ice and can get exuberantly loud. The colder the temperature, the faster the ice grows and the more frequent the stress cracks develop.

The lake does not grumble and groan every evening, and there’s no telling when to expect its eerie yowl. But just hearing its hauntingly beautiful voice confirms what I already know, this lake is alive with a spiritual energy and I am blessed to live here.