January 25, 2004

• Walking my Talk

  
  

  The other day in town one of my new friends was talking about how depressing winter is.  She’s informed, she knows about SADDS and the need to get some bright light now and then, but I reminded her anyway, to “get outside when the sun is shining.”  Sunny days have been rather rare for a couple of weeks, and when it has been sunny it has also been awfully cold.  Warmer air brings clouds and snow, so the choice is to take the cold or miss the sun.  Today when I noticed the bright sky and deep shadows out the windows, I decided to take some sun, and took the camera along.

  
  

  My favorite grove of trees across the street was looking good, with a fine coating of hoarfrost after a night of ice fog.

  
  

  I was out there in early afternoon, the warmest part of the day.  The mid-day sun angle is still rather low, but it’s almost getting above the treetops now and the days grow steadily longer.  There was a snowmachine trail across the muskeg, and I decided to walk out there, around that curve.  I’ve never been that far out there, to see what’s around that curve.  In winter the snow’s too deep and in summer it’s a marsh.  Although the snowmachines had packed a trail, the trail was “punchy”, to use the dog mushers’ term.  My feet punched through frequently, especially in places where the snowmobile had been moving fast, but it was still possible to take a few steps along the harder-packed areas before punching through again–hard walking, but there was that promise of a new vista around the bend.

  
  

  I passed this set of rabbit tracks that show a sudden stop and reverse course.  It made me wonder if the rabbit had started out that way just as a snowmobile was passing by, and got frightened back, or whether it saw that hawk that lives out there, or an eagle, or what.

  
  

  They aren’t really rabbits, our “rabbits”.  They are arctic varying hares, but only biologists call them that.  Big feet, twitchy noses, but not as much ear-length as a rabbit, we call them rabbits anyway.

  
  

  As I started to round that curve, facing into the sun, there was this set of moose tracks that appears to have been made during the last snowfall, because there is only a small amount of snow in them–less than what fell throughout that night.  A rabbit appears to have used the moose’s tracks the way I was using the snowmachine trail, or else it was just going the same place as the moose was.  Who knows?  The hare’s tracks roughly follow the moose’s, in and out and punching through, just like mine do. 

  
  

  I was getting a bit tired from the punchy trail, and my hands were cold because I’d worn only thin glove liners so I could handle the camera.  The fact is, the sunshine had deceived me.  It was colder out there than I anticipated, or I’d have worn my mittens. 

  
  

  

  
  

  Even so, I kept going because I really did want to see that part of the neighborhood I hadn’t had the chance to see before.  Beyond that bend in the trail the muskeg looks pretty much like it looks elsewhere.  No surprise there.  Okay, I saw it, and saw that there was yet another bend in the trail, up there ahead, but I turned back toward home anyway.

  
  

  This was more physical activity than I’ve had on a stay-at-home day for months.  It did feel good to get out in the sunshine, but I tired quickly.  No surprise there, either.  I guess that’s why they call it chronic fatigue syndrome.

  
  

  On my way back, on the opposite side of the trail I was on, I saw some even more interesting tracks.  They were farther off the trail, and the sun angle wasn’t as good to show them as it was with the others.  There are two sets of canid tracks, one smaller than the other.  I’m not a good enough tracker to tell if they were two dogs, a dog and a wolf or a dog and a fox… two canids, apparently running fast from the distance between footfalls.  The way the smaller set curves away and the larger one follows, apparently the big one was chasing the little one.  In the middle distance there is a spot where it may have caught up, or where (if this was just two dogs at play) they stopped to check out a smell or something.  There’s a jumble of tracks there, and then the dual  running trail continues on in a long arc across the muskeg and toward the end of the cul de sac. 

  
  

  And that’s home up ahead as I made it back out to the road.  There’s even a thin plume of chimney smoke, one of the most comforting and welcoming sights I know.

  
  

  It was a nice day for a walk, but I would probably have been better off, physically, to have stayed on the road.  If I had, I would have missed the tracks and the mystery they posed, and also missed seeing what’s around the bend, even if it was only another bend.  So, I’m not sorry I took off on that punchy little trail.  I’m just tired and sore.  It will pass. 

  
  

   

  • 5:41 am
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