Ode to Spring

Spring officially began on March 19 this year in the Northern Hemisphere. But as Northern Ontario residents know that date is still the dead of winter in these parts. In lower latitudes (even marginally lower) people are seeing green grass and tulips, while we are enjoying some really good ice fishing. 

Our change of seasons really comes about a month later in mid April. And it does so reluctantly. Some people think in terms of this time of transition as another season. As we all know it can be winter one day and spring the next; even winter in the morning and spring in the afternoon. 

This morning I needed a strong coffee (most mornings actually). So as soon as I walked into the kitchen I put the water on. Then I checked my messages and emails and responded to them. By this time the water had boiled and I poured hot water into my coffee grains. Then I pushed down the toaster. Now that I had nothing to do, I stood at the toaster and waited for it to pop. Man that takes a long time! Almost ten minutes in fact. While ten minutes doesn’t seem like a long time, try treading water for that long. Back in my twenties during my basic SWAT training I had to tread water fully clothed with my hands handcuffed behind my back - for ten minutes. Trust me, those ten minutes were a “long-long-long” time!

The analogy here is this: Spring in the north doesn’t arrive, it evolves. You can sit and stare out the window in anticipation for this transformation - or you can do something in the mean time. 

Like the other day when I drove out to my cabin to fetch my ice-fishing gear. I snowshoed into my humble abode and dragged all my gear out on a sled through snow drifts that were in some cases 4-feet high. I could have ice-fished in fact, as the bay still was solid with 16-inches of hard ice. But because I had this unquenchable urge to fish open water, I found some along Superior’s shore where I could fling a fly and spend the afternoon flogging frigid water. 

But lest we forget, this reluctant transition is not over. No, no, no. It can snow heavily in April and even May. I remember during the spring of 1983 when a huge snow storm hit on April 13th. (And yes “old people” do engage in conversations that begin like this.) I remember the year and date because I bought a brand new Ford Bronco in March of that year and had to lock it into 4-wheel drive to navigate around stranded cars on Memorial Avenue. 

Another fond memory of spring-days-gone-by is the time I took our friend Gilberto Elguezabal Jr. steelhead fishing in mid May. “Hil” as we affectionally referred to him, was a foreign exchange student from Mexico that lived at our house one winter. His goal was to experience a northern winter and improve his English. 

We were hiking up a trail to the river before dawn and were breaking through iced-over puddles with our wading boots. Hil turned to me at one point, obviously shivering, and said in his heavy Mexican accent, “Do’se eet ever get warm here?”

“Yes it does. For a couple of days in August.” Was my answer. 

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