Footsteps in the snow

So beautiful after it’s just fallen, a pristine white blanket of snow is something that no artist could capture the full beauty of, no writer could describe with any real justice. So, why the hell am I trying? Hmmm…

But the fields, shrouded in twinkling white crystals, untouched, unsullied, don’t stay that way for long. Before a night has passed there are telltale reminders of the nature that we live amongst. Tiny and not so small footprints crisscross the fields, gardens and laneways. They come out of the bush, seemingly out of thin air, and melt away again not with the thaw but through and between low-slung branches, thickets of thorns, places where all but the most intrepid of naturalist sleuth would baulk at following.

And, it is these magical, mysterious night-time visitors that have so captured my eye in my first real winter in Haliburton. While walking the streets of London had its own moments of investigation for an inquisitive tracker: the telltale pools of vomit from bar exit to home doorstep; the trail of garbage and kebab meat scraps left by after-pub feeders; even the hoots and hollers of teenagers in heat, there wasn’t much that could be described as anything other than the detritus of human society.

Here, on the other hand, the opposite is true. Yes, I see the tracks of skidoo enthusiasts weaving curvaceous patterns across the lakes. Yes, I see the enthusiastic treads and subsequent down-hearted shuffles of the ice fishermen (as so eloquently described recently by a fellow columnist); yes, I witness the slithered slides of cross country skiers moments before excitedly glimpsing such an athlete and then being rebuked for walking on the ski trail! But these human interventions are a mere sideshow to the myriad evidence of nature in beautiful Haliburton County. Tracks, tail drags, wing beats, delightful frolics and deadly encounters, all are captured and preserved in ice cold imprints.

And, it was these animal tracks that had me in their spell early one morning as I padded round my garden testing out – for ‘testing out’ read ‘stumbling around in’ – my new snow shoes. Amidst the dawn mist were signs of a visit by two deer. The muskrats had been busy scuttling along the shoreline; their tiny footmarks divided by the drag line of a scaly tail. A mob of those unruly blue jays had left quite a scrum of prints around the deer food. And, our friend Nutkin the squirrel had been busy too, his bounding hops dot-to-dotting patterns between the spruce trees.

And it was then that I saw them. Big tracks. A trail close into the bush at the bottom of the garden. Paw prints, really fresh and of such a size that my heart pounded suddenly faster and my head spun round instinctively looking for their maker. My brain had already gone into overdrive; one part of it conjuring all kinds if red in tooth and claw scenarios, another telling me to calm down because hardly anyone ever sees a wolf.

I stood up straight and smiled, my breathing slowing to its regular pattern: “Like following the spots of blood after that fight in London,” I chuckled to myself, reminded of a time past when that same heady cocktail of fear and excitement had gripped me. And it was then, just then, that said cocktail came flooding back. Ahead, just 40 feet perhaps I spotted a large shape through the alder brush.

I stopped in my tracks – those tell tale tennis racket shaped ones, interspaced with large hollows and flailings where I’d fallen over – and so did the creature I shared this early morning with. I couldn’t make out its features clearly. I couldn’t do anything. I simply stood rooted to the spot staring, my breathing sounding like a steam train in my ears, my heart beating a tattoo in my chest.

Then it moved. It came at me, bounding through the alder thicket. I tried to turn and stepped backwards, which is always a mistake in snow shoes, and promptly fell over. Panicking, I struggled on to my back and came face to face with the wet muzzle of our next door neighbour’s German Shepherd, Brewzer!