Icy water flows under the Kicking Horse Pedestrian Bridge.
The mornings have grown still, it is 8:15, the light just beginning to show and brighten the world. It looks cold, grey...lifeless. The trees are reflections of their roots having shed all of their leaves, now posing as multi-stemmed spires pointing skywards. I sit inside sipping my coffee while pondering an existence without heated housing, just the thought leads me to believe I wouldn’t have made it to 28. Although I am in the comfort of my living room bundled in warm clothes, I soon will be walking with my wife to work. The frozen morning staring at me through the double pane windows, like a spirit, taunting me.
It is November first and will be my first winter in Canada. The surrounding mountains are already donning their winter jackets, freshly white from the last precipitation event. The time is now 8:40, departure. I suit up into long johns, pants, sweater, puffy, and an aviator hat. I am ready. The cold morning taunts me less enthusiastically now, I have prepared to enter the world.
Refreshing, the air filling my lungs. Chilling my nostrils as I inhale deeply. The morning is quiet and still. There is no breeze, no sounds. The world seems shell shocked by the first icy morning. Yesterday's mud is now frozen with tire imprints that may not fade until spring when the northern hemisphere begins to warm once again. The puddle that we generally avoid is now the home of a miniature skating rink, surrounded by defeated fans, or, in reality, remnants of Aesculus hippocastanum (Horse Chestnut) . We’re five minutes into our stroll and I can feel the cold in my lips, particularly my bottom lip.
We climb the short gravel slope to the riverside path, the river is as still as I have ever seen it...and quiet. Islands of ice float downstream, coalescing and disbanding at the will of the current. “Holy shit...it’s only November first…” I think to myself. This is going to be a long, cold winter. As we walk upstream a faint scraping sound comes to our attention.
The ice, wandering down stream, grazes with the ice coupled to the river’s bank. The sound is nearly that of nails on a chalkboard, but pleasant. Perhaps they are auditory cousins. The sound gently scrapes along, differing by the size of the ice sheet, creating a feeling that there are many scrapes, scratches, and etchings occurring all along the river (which of course there was).
It’s almost cold enough for Wim Hof.
It is the winter spirits, they are celebrating. They can once again skate on the soon-to-freeze river. Closing my eyes I can picture all of them gliding up and down the riverway, wearing dated clothing, perhaps the clothes they had worn in their era. Black bonnets slightly cocked, a black and white plaid scarf wrapped around the neck, tail dancing along to the movement, and a red pea-coat covering just below the knees. The morning spirits were not taunting me as I watched them from my warm home, they, excited as Christmas morning children, wanted me to join them. To play and celebrate the winter, to reveal that winter can be fun. Showing me that fearing the winter will only make it longer and colder.