Enjoying sun, snow at the cabin

I spent a couple days at my family’s cabin near Park Rapids this past weekend.

 

Though the cabin was its familiar self–simple, comfortable, and embedded in a natural setting–many elements of the trip made me feel as if I was on an alien planet.

 

Once my brother and I got north of Motley, we noticed the ground was consistently covered with about three inches of snow. We learned from someone who lives in the area year round that there was a time when the snow was all melted, but a bit over a week ago, five or more inches fell, and had managed to keep its cold grip on the landscape ever since.

 

Compare that, of course, to the two dozen daffodils blooming along the front of my house. 

 

Heck, not only couldn’t we even see the grass on the cabin’s lawn, we couldn’t get to it. We ended up bogging down on the winding, hilly road that we usually love for its privacy and isolation. The snow itself was an irritation, but given temperatures in the 40s, the least bit of pressure turned the snow into an ice-like surface. Let me just say that, with backing up, taking runs, then backing up again, we probably drove five miles or more even though the road isn’t one mile long.

 

We ended up parking probably 200 feet away and having to fetch a sled to carry our belongings to the cabin.

 

I tell you all this not to complain–I feel lucky to have a cabin to visit, regardless of any adversities–but to support my claim about being on another world.

 

I am happy to report there is still suet in my birdfeeder and the pileated woodpecker came by at least daily for a few bites to eat. It also vastly improved my weekend that, although we could barely get to the cabin on day one, by day two the warmer temperatures had cleared the road enough to allow us to drive right down to our usual parking spot.

 

The truly surreal experience I want to describe lasted less than half an hour.

 

The lake, my avid fisherman brother informs me, still has about a foot of ice. It remains solid all the way to shore, so that he can simply step onto it and walk to his favorite spot.

 

With highs in the 40s and better, he did not need a shelter, but instead made sure the holes were open on his first sojourn, and could then count on them to remain open for the rest of the weekend. He sauntered out, opened his folding chair as though it were summer, and sat down to fish.

 

On Sunday, the temperature stretched as high as 65 degrees. With the sun beaming down, he even took off his jacket while fishing.

 

I was inside the cabin working on tasks for the newspaper, but when I saw him out there on the sunny, icy lake, I decided I was obligated to take a picture. I stepped outside, found an angle high above the lake with a clear view, and very purposely framed a shot which showed him in his chair with a low-lying line of fog just blurring the trunks of the trees behind him. 

 

Photographically speaking, it was an appealing shot.

 

Then I wondered how the picture would look if I moved to a lower location on the shoreline. I moved maybe 100 feet to a spot where the shore is only a foot or so above the “iceline.” I aimed my camera out across the lake and discovered my brother had disappeared. 

 

The 10-foot-tall, fuzzy line of fog had somehow taken possession of the lake. I could genuinely see the air in front of me turning opaque. In a matter of seconds, the very atmosphere and landscape (icescape?) had changed.

 

In addition to feeling isolated and alone, I was amazed. I knew my brother was still out there, blithely waiting for a fish to bite, but there would have been no way to prove it.

Shaking my head in wonder, I walked back toward the cabin.

 

One hundred feet later, I felt the sun shining on my head. The fog–even the picturesque little 10-foot bank of it–was gone.

 

As though I had imagined the whole episode, there sat my brother, bathed in sunlight, still watching his bobber. I shook my head again, and decided I was glad to have pictures to prove my story is true.