Dreaming of Open Water

I like winter. I like ice and snow and outdoor activities. I even like the cold. It makes me feel alive.

But right around this time of year, as the days grow a little longer and the sun shines a little more intensely, I start dreaming of open water.

With our mild fall and winter down in the Twin Cities–and the help of a few brave paddling partners– I was able to extend my canoeing season well beyond when I normally hang up my life jacket. But after the cold weather in January, even the rivers have locked up. Prep time. The broken canoe rib has been spot-welded, the paddles stowed in the rafters, and next season’s boat registrations ordered. My mind wanders.

I first dipped my paddle in the water last year on April 30. I had been checking the status of the ice at a nearby entry point every evening for a week. On that fateful Thursday, I was delighted to find that the stubborn clump of honeycomb ice had receded enough to open up a channel along the shore to the first portage. I ran the quarter-mile home, grabbed a canoe, and jogged back with the boat on my shoulders, too excited to bother strapping it onto my truck. When I pushed off from shore and heard the rush of water and clink of ice under the hull, my already-elevated breath quickened. I felt like a kid again.

As my boots crunched through crusty snow on the portage, I felt perversely proud, like I had won a race before the other competitors even knew it’d started. I MUST be the first one out here this season, I thought to myself. The lynx tracks pressed into the mud up around the next corner disabused me of this notion. Mine were far from the first feet to cross the portage that spring; they probably weren’t even the first of that day.

I only made it a few lakes in before I encountered ice that was frozen solid. I floated there next to the
shore as the shadows grew long and the air grew chilly. A pair of loons passed low overhead, the high-pitched whistle of their flapping wings punctuating the stillness. I couldn’t stop smiling.

I like routine. Too much change drives me nuts. And yet I sure am grateful for the rhythmic contrast of seasons in the Midwest. Every spring, I get to fall in love with open water all over again.

“But it’s only February,” you say. I know. I can wait. Most good things in this world require patience. But the next time you see me staring out the window lost in thought, or diligently shoveling the snow off of the battered old Grumman canoe up on blocks in my backyard, or stopping along the path on my afternoon walk to gaze out over the frozen Mississippi River, you’ll know what’s on my mind.

—Dan Ahrendt, Wilderness Canoe Base Program Manager