You've heard “The Sound of Music”, right? Well did you know that the ice on a frozen lake makes beautiful music too? And by beautiful music I mean crashing crescendos, explosive cracking, painful popping, and giant groaning. No, not even my feeble attempt to use descriptive words comes close to describing the sounds that ice makes. If you haven't heard the sounds first hand, you wouldn't know what I am trying to describe.
I would liken it to, perhaps, the sound of an avalanche, which of course most of us have not heard first hand or up close. Or maybe the sound of a giant glacier when it calves. That sound I have heard while in Alaska. But I was so far away that I had no way of appreciating the sound it must have made up close. I could also describe it as the power and rumbling of an earthquake, several of which I have been through. The only way I can describe the sound that ice makes, though, is to think of the wildest 4th of July pyrotechnic show you have ever been to. Or the most severe summertime thunderstorm you have ever experienced. Perhaps, even, if both of those events were happening at the very same time, you would come close to what the sound of ice moving and building on a cold night would sound like.
As I lay in my bunk one night when the temperature was well below zero, the lake came alive. When ice is forming, or “building” it expands and contracts. It's hard to understand the awesome force and power that a chunk of ice can have. The LOUD popping, cracking and groaning is perhaps like all of the above sounds put together. Especially when you hear the crack starting in the distance and the sound of the crack gets closer and closer and finally the crack goes right under the fish house and the house shakes a bit. I closed my eyes as the groaning, popping and crashing started and visualized a fireworks show that went right along with the sounds....Ooooh,.... Ahhh, isn't DAKOTA LIFE great ! !
No comments:
Post a Comment