Monday 27 February 2017

Lake in white

There are some pluses to a Nordic snowstorm (see my previous post). It is sometimes followed by a brilliantly sunny day. When returning from my mother-in-law on Saturday (she turned 90 last summer and still lives in a house on her own), we just had to stop to admire the pure white and blue views across the lake of hubby’s childhood and youth.



They said in the news the ice thickness on this lake is now some 40cm, which is about two times what is required to bear the weight of a car. We saw several people ice fishing there. Some of them had driven to the middle of the lake by car. Sadly, an incident had taken place on this very lake the same morning. Because of the fresh snow a group of three heading for ice fishing hadn’t noticed a crack in the ice and the front of their car had sunken in it. The two passengers were unharmed but the driver couldn’t be saved, not because of drowning but presumably because of a seizure of some sort.

Ice can be deceptive, even more so nowadays when the winters have turned less predictable. I feel it would be best to keep motor vehicles away from ice, perhaps with the exception of snowmobiles in the hands of experienced drivers.


4 comments:

  1. Your m in law sounds amazing still living alone at 90. What a wonderful drive back with such scenes. B x

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    1. Hubby has two brothers who both live close by so someone goes to check on her daily.

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  2. I am way behind with my blog reading. You have been posting some amazing pictures as usual. The swans against the sunset were fantastic! I wouldn't want to drive a car on ice I would be too worried that it would break! Sarah x

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    1. Winter roads on ice have always been rather common in our country, although more so on the lakes. Sometimes ice roads allow access to places that would otherwise be beyond reach in winter. You can carry, say, construction material to a future building site on an island or fetch timber from a roadless location. Sometimes they are utilised to shorten the distances between two places when you don't have to drive around a lake, for example. I suppose this practice will become less ordinary in future because of global warming.

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