A cousin phoned me late last night, just to reminisce about the old days, as he always does. I like it when he calls. Even though he has a lot of people in his life, family, friends, he still gets lonely. We pass the time remembering what we can, and making up what we can't. But he also keeps up to date with family news, so he's always got some hot nuggets of knowledge to pass on to me. Such as "Someone's bought the old diner in town; turning it into a woodworking shop. Oh, and there's still a lot of ice still on the lake. Lots of snow around." That was in answer to what was new up north, and how were our up north cousins still skidooing. Just to double check my sources I looked at Zoom Earth satellite imagery for this date, and yup, my cousin is right. The world north of Lake Simcoe is still white and frosty looking. There's a distinct smudge of soft brown all across the south, like a giant swept his arm over southern Ontario to clear away the snow, maybe to get a better look. Ice out for Temagami is around the third week of April. I betcha April 25th. But around here miles to the south?
The ice is melting fast along the banks of the Grand River here. Just last month I was one of the last vehicles to drive across the bridge downtown before it was closed due to a dangerous ice dam. I was on my way to try to prepare an absent friend's house for the flood waters. What can you do for a single storey bungalow? Garage valuables I lifted up into the rafters. Emptied the basement of the few items worth saving. Took away all the power tools, locked the doors and hoped for the best. It was a long drive around the closed bridges to get home back across the river. Miles of traffic snaked up and down county roads, everyone looking for a way to somewhere else. It made me nervous to be heading in the opposite direction to them, upstream to a small town coffee shop, away from crowds and traffic troubles, and grinding ice. But the levees held. Ice dammed up to the bottom of a couple bridges, held there for a day and more, and then flushed through downstream. Ice pans lay like massive pavement slabs dumped in piles upstream along the shore. That was one ice out I'll never forget. Driving across the bridge the other day I saw logs and branches still caught up in the pedestrian bridge structure, formerly a railway trestle, right at the level where joggers and cyclists will soon be passing once the weather warms up a little more.
