Each foray into nature is a unique, one-off experience. A product of its place and time. Sunsets fade to night, prints in the snow melt, and spring flowers are ephemeral. It’s a song that repeats itself each year, with a rhythm familiar enough for us to tap along to, but a new melody each time.
The winter landscape helps us see traces of a world that is often hidden from us in the warmer months. Echoes of activity are left on the snow and we catch a sort of glimpse of the split-second private lives of animals that normally we would only be lucky to witness. Often, even when we can see the evidence of these fleeting moments, we are left to wonder what exactly happened - as if we were archaeologists figuring out how the ancients lived by examining their ruins.
I spent a recent day snowshoeing out on Squam with a few of my fellow AmeriCorps members, exploring some of the islands and their frozen shores. It was not a planned trip - I had meant to hike elsewhere that morning but forgot some gear at home. Rather than heading back and staying inside for the rest of the day, I decided to stop by SLA and walk out on the lake instead. As it just so happened, Carolina, Fay, and Hunter had the same idea only a few minutes earlier. ‘Great minds think alike,’ Carolina texted as I was catching up to them over the ice. Indeed.
The snow crunched beneath our feet as we made our way out of the relative shelter of Piper Cove and out on the main lake. Wind-carved drifts of snow framed our journey; snowmobile tracks crisscrossed the lake, creating geometric connections between the bob-houses that had recently started to go up.
After a while, as we walked out into a cove between two islands, we encountered a beautiful, confusing, and mysterious story written in the snow. Spread out over nearly half an acre of frozen lake were dozens of perfect wing imprints, each one framing two holes where feet had plunged into the several inches of fresh snow. Some of these stood on their own, others part of a series - two, three, even four. What happened here? Was this the hunting ground of an owl, perched in the branches along the shore preying on mice tunneling beneath the snow? Was it a group of ravens playing a game whose rules are known only to them? I don’t think we will ever know, and I like that. An experienced birder could probably identify whose wings they were based on the wingspan and size of feathers, but that might detract from the enchantment and wonder of that moment captured on the frozen lake’s surface. The wing prints, exposed as they were to the February sun, and awaiting a fresh blanket of snow, were a self-destructing message. And those should always have an air of mystery.
Who knows how many times over the years this scenario has played out along these shores? Is it always this particular cove? Is it sometimes on one side or the other? It might be nice to have that sort of historical perspective on Squam’s hidden corners, but the real importance is for us to afford the wild its due space and reverence, and manage these lands and waters in a way that preserves their character and their sense of mystery, so that nature can riff out its yearly song while we tap and hum along.
Nathan is a Trails and Access Assistant at Squam Lakes Association. When he’s not serving at SLA, you can find him exploring the Whites, or, better yet, the deserts of the Southwest. Learn more about Nathan here.