January 22

1/22/08: Tuesday, 8:00 AM. -10 degrees, barometer down, predicting snow. Wind calm, sky partly cloudy. A bit of "lake smoke" is rising off the channel, from the trail of the ferry boats, still running this morning.
The snow covered roads are squeaky and crunchy this morning walking, which is itself an indicator of cold temperatures. The squeakier the colder. If one paid enough attention to the sound and correlated it with the thermometer one could learn to tell the temperature by the sound alone. A corollary to that method would be the way we could estimate the temperature in New York by how the rhododendrons and mountain laurel leaves curled up and drooped.
Yesterday a workman was pumping water out of the lake to create a thickly frozen approach at shoreline for the wind sled, and ultimately for the ice road, and there were several ice fishing tents off the small beach near the ferry dock. I am sure the ferry will stop running in another day, then we can say it is winter in Bayfield for sure.
For a far better description of a winter walk than any I can give, I refer you to Henry David Thoreau's essay of the same name. Thoreau is a good winter reading companion, even if the prose is a bit heavy for current tastes. I also have picked up to read again George Perkins Marsh's "Man and Nature," first published in 1864, and one of the earliest truly scientific books on the subject. It can be heavy going though, and is best read before bedtime, a chapter a night.
I can't help but think, by the way, that Thoreau would have approved of Bayfield, since in his time, "the bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver and marten have disappeared," in Massachusetts, circa 1842. You may not easily encounter some of them here and now, but they are mostly with us again, and often, alone in the woods, one can sometimes sense their presence. I know a few locals who carry a pistol in their pocket if they are going into the back country.