A Perilous and Fantastic Journey

Photo by Odd Kåre Wiik

He had been in the forest for many days, and he was hungry. The canopy of pine and fir trees shielded the sun, but now it had gone away entirely, so that not even the filtered light shined through.

He needed the sun to warm himself. It was nearly Winter, and all the creatures of the forests were gone. The insects had been born, mated, and had died or been eaten. The amphibians and mammals had gone to hibernate through the cold, dead months. The deer, moose and fox were still about, but these were not food for him. He needed to eat and store up energy before he too settled down for the winter.

The snake continued his solitary sinuous journey through the undergrowth of the forest floor. The abundance of summer had passed and now his territory was barren of life. He would have to hunt elsewhere.

Passing over the roots of trees, around and over rocks, and through the moss and barren blueberry bushes, he came to the edge of a lake. To him it was like an ocean. He tasted the air with his tongue as he crept along the riverbank. If only he could fish. If only there were still a bird’s nest with an egg or two hidden there.

That day a storm had come in. The temperature had dropped well below zero and remained there since. The precipitation turned to snow and began to lightly blanket the ground. It was an anomaly that had caught him off guard. Normally, he would have had time for a last meal before going into hibernation. Now it might be too late.

A sheet of ice had grown like a skin on the lake. Across the vast expanse was another forest: a new hunting ground that perhaps was more bountiful. Desperation made him venture out onto the cold surface of the lake.

He glided along its surface, grey from the clouds in the sky. Just keep going, his instinct told him. If he stopped, he might freeze to death.

Only his movement was keeping him warm now as he curled and coiled his way across the surface. He was the perfect killer. Just a tongue to taste his prey, teeth and body that was nothing more than a long stomach with scales that gripped the ground or glided over it, depending, in an endless hypnotic sashay.

On the ice he was fortunately able to move quickly. After a few minutes he was nearly halfway across. He continued a few minutes more until with his bad eyesight had could just make out the opaque green of the trees in the distance.

He was getting cold, but the sight was encouraging. If only the sun would come out to give him an extra burst of energy.

Still, he thought he would make it. But he was feeling very tired. He would just stop for a moment to rest before the final push to his new hunting ground.

*   *   *    

Gunnar glided along the ice on his long-bladed skates. He had settled into a rhythm. He lifted and threw one leg in front of the other in an endless repetition that sent him flying across the blank canvass of the lake’s surface, making his mark in all the silence and solitude of the Northern nature. He held his arms behind his back and leaned forward with his body, occasionally closing his eyes and just feeling the motion and listening to the sounds of his skates in the ice.

This was his church, and his therapy and escape from the noise of daily life with other humans. He would just glide for many kilometres on the lake, do a lap and return home.

Winter had come early that year in the form of freak storm that dropped the temperature well below zero. He had waited for several hours before going out to check the ice. It was just thick enough, but still marginal in places. He would be taking a risk going now, but he couldn’t wait. Free skating was his favourite pastime. He had his ice axes, safety vest, and emergency beacon if he fell through.

Gunnar skated along at just under 30 kilometres an hour, feeling the wind and the snowflakes melting instantly on his face. This was freedom. There wasn’t another living creature visible for miles. Just the grey flat frozen plain hemmed in by the dense green forest on the riverbanks. What fools people were to live in the cities, he thought. Once you learn to be comfortable in your own company, the only place to be was in the calm and silence of nature.

He skated along like this for a few minutes, not seeing the black shape on the ice in front of him until he was upon it. When he struck it, it was just enough to put him off balance, and he stumbled and fell forward.

The weight of his body and pack broke the ice and Gunnar plunged into its icy depths. It was dark and cold, and he felt himself being dragged downward by the weight of his skates. Everything slowed down and he thought, I may die today.

Fortunately, it was not the first time he been through the ice, and he did not panic. After the shock of it, both the falling through and the cold, subsided, Gunnar pulled on the cord of his life vest, and it popped open and hissed as it filled with air and sent him the surface like a cork.

Unfortunately, it pinned him to the underside of the ice as he had drifted from the hole where he had fallen through. He would die there if he could not break through.

But Gunnar was prepared for this, too. Reaching down with his hands now blue and hurting from the cold, he grabbed a small ice axe on his belt and slammed it into the ice, which cracked but did not break. With a second and third blow he broke through, made a larger hole, and got his head out of the water like a curious and relieved seal, gasping for air. Now came the hard part. He would have to lift himself out of the water, hoping the ice would hold.

First, he removed his bag and slung it onto the ice a few feet from the hole. Then he took his other ice axe, and using both, picked at the ice as he lifted himself slowly out, laying flat and wide like a starfish to distribute his weight. He pulled one skated leg up and out of the hole, and then the other before picking his way from the hole, where the ice was weakened, to firmer ground.

Once there, Gunnar stood up carefully and caught his breath, before recovering and shouldering his bag, deflating his vest, and strapping his axes back onto his belt.

He wasn’t out of danger yet. He needed to get to land quickly and build a fire to warm up and avoid catching hypothermia. Gunnar was prepared for this eventuality as well. In his pack he had a dry bag that contained his lunch, a small propane burner for coffee, matches, and dry clothes.

But what was it he had hit on the ice, anyway? A branch? It was bit far out from shore for that.

As Gunnar began to skate away, he spotted it.

What was that? A snake?

He could not believe his eyes. Looking down there was, in fact, a snake, with part of its body and head cut off just where his skate had run over it.

What were the odds, he thought. Gunnar had never in his life heard of a snake venturing out onto a frozen lake. It was a surreal sight indeed. The snake was curled there in an interesting yet sinister pattern. The damn thing had nearly killed him, he though angrily, his teeth chattering from cold.

Then he felt remorse. He had killed the snake on its perilous and fantastic journey. Perhaps if he hadn’t passed by at just that time it would have made it to land. What were the odds of their accidental and fatal meeting? It seemed you could be prepared for every eventuality and then nature would still surprise you.

Looking closer, Gunnar could see that the snake had been frozen for some time as it was partly sunken into the ice. It was both bizarre and sad, but he felt better knowing it had not been him that had led to the snake’s unusual demise. He was also glad to be alive himself.

Getting out his camera, Gunnar took a picture of the morbid but beautiful ice sculpture as a memento of that unusual day, and so they would believe him when he told the story.

 

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- Markus