Scandic Rhythms

Scandic Rhythms

Mark Talbot

First to be noticed is frosting along the edge. While the forest floor is always in shade, due to

shrubs and evergreen trees, it is even darker when snow falls and temperatures begin to plummet. The crunch underfoot is evident too. The freshwater lake alters quickly, its surface beginning to stiffen. Soon completely frozen with perhaps two metres of packed ice, thick and strong enough that rallycross car competitions can be held on the surface without fear.

      One would use a long screw to fish through a hole in the ice. Air temperatures could be below minus thirty, but plus four on the silted bottom resulting in vibrant fish life throughout the year. Using a realistic lure, you’ll undoubtedly catch something despite the cold. If it is large enough for the frying pan that evening, great. Too small and it will suffice for cat food because, whatever the size, as it is reeled up through the varying ice layers and emerges from the hole, it is rock hard and instantly frozen solid.

     It is early May before a thaw starts and mid-summer is when everything goes wild. Beneath the snow, nests of big mosquitoes have incubated and this is when those nasty insects hatch causing havoc to unprotected skin. Where the winters are permanently dark with no sunrise, summers have no sunset. More than possible to be on one of the thousands of lakes fishing on a boat or reading a book by natural light at three in the morning.

      On those hot, summer days sitting on the jetty holding each other, one stares out across the silky lake. The flick of pike’s tail as it squirts after a perch, disturbs the surface. The ripple continues to spread long after the predator has claimed his prize below in those murky waters. Then, like a switch, autumn begins once more.