Those who’ve never spent a winter north of Milwaukee are often gripped by fear at the thought of driving a vehicle on a frozen lake. But where I live, lakes become shortcuts in winter. Trucks plow trails to fishing spots. Networks of roads unfurl where no solid ground exists in summer.
Before any of that happens, however, there’s plenty of waiting, testing ice conditions, drilling holes to check ice thickness, driving by boat landings to check activity.
While there’s no real safety in numbers when it comes to being among the first to drive out on the ice, it feels that way. It’s always comforting to see a few F-150s parked together fishing before you drive out yourself for the first time. And once a road is plowed, it’s a free for all — people just out driving around, small cars cutting time off the morning commute, people fishing, and of course snowmobiles and UTVs criss-crossing it all. I’ve even seen pizzas delivered across frozen water.
When I was a kid, I can remember driving across the ice with my family to go to my grandma’s for Christmas Eve. My mom used to walk across the ice back and forth to school when she was a kid. This past Christmas Eve I skated on that same ice with my niece and nephews.
We always hear that water connects us all. Around here, the ice connects people, too. I fish with a group of friends with whom I share an ice shack. People stop to visit, checking the depth, so to speak. There are snowmobile races, hockey tournaments, polar plunges and other events on lakes across the area.
I just heard yesterday that there’s 9 inches of good clear ice on the lake my friends and I fish. There haven’t been any vehicles out there yet, but it won’t be long.
Meanwhile, there are flood warnings in California but Lake Mead is only 33% full. A couple weeks ago — I’m writing this in early January — atmospheric river-fueled rain led to levee failures along the Green and White rivers and set off deadly flooding in parts of western Washington. Avalanche danger is high in Utah and Wyoming. And a bomb cyclone sucked water as much as a half-mile away from shore on some parts of Lake Erie.
You might never set foot on a frozen lake, suffer through a flood or even be familiar with terms like atmospheric river and bomb cyclone. But water shapes all of our lives and brings us together in ways we don’t typically think about on a daily basis, and the more we pay attention the better our odds of living in balance with it.
And that’s the only real point here: Water really does connect us all, regardless of the season, state or situation.
Enjoy this month’s issue.
