Down river on snow-covered ice.

February 7.

February 7, 2016

The river has not been so concealed by snow before. 

We crossed the Great Meadows lengthwise, a broad level plain, roughened only by snowy waves, about two miles long and nearly half as wide. Looking back over it made me think of what I have read of Arctic explorers travelling over snow-covered ice. 

Saw a few crows. Some green-briar berries quite fresh. 

Made a fire on the snow-covered ice half a mile below Ball's Hill -- a large warm fire, whose flame went up straight, there being no wind, and without smoke. Stayed half an hour, and when we took our departure, felt as if we had been in a house all the while, for we had been warm and had looked steadily at the fire instead of looking off. The fire made a large circular cavity in the snow and ice, three feet in diameter and four or five inches deep, with water at the bottom. 

We had often sailed over this very spot.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 7, 1854

It made me think of what I have read of Arctic explorers travelling over snow-covered ice. See February 2, 1860 ("No part of our scenery is ever more arctic than the river and its meadows now."); February 3, 1852 ("The landscape covered with snow two feet thick . . .The scenery is wholly arctic.")

Made a fire on the snow-covered ice.  See February 2, 1860("And as we were kindling a fire on the pond by the side of the island, we saw the fox "); February 20, 1854 ("It is best to lay down first some large damp wood on the ice for a foundation, since the success of a fire depends very much on the bed of coals it makes, and, if these are nearly quenched in the basin of melted ice, there is danger that it will go out.")

We had often sailed over this very spot. See February 3, 1856 ("How different this from sailing or paddling up the stream here in July, or poling amid the rocks!"); January 24, 1856("They have been sledding wood along the river . . . one of the rockiest and swiftest parts of the stream. Where I have so often stemmed the swift current, dodging the rocks, with my paddle, there the heavy, slow paced oxen, with their ponderous squeaking load, have plodded, while the teamster walked musing beside it.")

February 7. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 7

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt540207