And then the snow came
Gathering in the mud, shrouding the bleak grass, white sparks vanishing into the black river. The ice, as if suddenly remembering, breathed itself across the edges of things, once more covering the surface of shallow ponds. The world turned to winter again. Late March, but the rightness of it sat in our bones.
“If only this had happened in December or January,” became my refrain, echoed by almost everyone I talked to.
We all knew it was coming: even after the warmest winter on record, these woods never release us into the relief of spring without a few final snowfalls. If any recent arrivals thought they might have gotten away without facing a northern winter, they were mistaken. The reality of this place has returned to the landscape.
But only for a little while. Soon the thaw will come (the real one, this time). As soon as the ice vanishes from the lakes, the planks will go in the dam, starving the river downstream for the summertime pleasures of the wealthy and upper middle class. “It’s for our grandchildren,” these individuals opine.
What about the grandchildren of great blue herons and kingfishers? The descendants of the sturgeons and muskies so lauded by local fishermen? What about the children of river otters and muskrats, the countless species of dragonflies and damselflies, spring peepers and chorus frogs, crayfish and bryozoa?
Don’t their grandkids deserve to play in the sparkling river too—and not just to play, but to live, and to thrive?
The human population won’t be impacted if kids don’t get to go water-skiing one summer. The health of a river is a harder thing to get back. The lives impacted by human whims are harder to calculate.
Today the snow is still falling, and the future has not yet arrived. Maybe this summer, humans will rewrite the story they give to the river. Maybe this year, we will think about everyone’s grandchildren.