ADKX-tra Credit
ADKX-tra Credit
All About Anne: Adventures in Winter
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Winter in the Adirondacks is long, cold, and either incredibly dark or dazzlingly bright. The snow dances through the air and shimmers on the ground, and many of us cozy up at home with a hot drink. But for woodswoman Anne LaBastille, winter was a time for perilous journeys, neighborly actions, and as little time cozied up to the woodstove as she could manage. This episode of ADK-xtra Credit tells the story of just a few of Anne’s many winter time adventures. Listen in to learn even more about the Adirondack’s most famous woodswoman.
Introductory Segment
Brrr! It sure is cold out here in the Adirondacks today. The Adirondack region has very cold and snowy winters, making it a challenging place for people and animals to live. For woodswoman Anne La Bastille, winter was a difficult but rewarding time of year. From admiring the sparkling snow of a subzero Adirondack night, to helping people navigate a treacherously freezing Black Bear Lake, winter was a time of both stillness and adventure during Anne’s years as a woodswoman.
TRANSITION - ADKX Podcast Intro - Ready to earn some extra credit? You are listening to ADKX-tra Credit, a podcast for students about the history of the Adirondack Mountains and the people that have lived, worked, and played here. The Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, is located in the heart of the Adirondack Park of New York State.
CONTENT
Here in the Adirondacks, most of our lakes freeze solid during the winter, this means that for Anne, while she was able to use a boat to travel to her cabin during warm weather, she had to switch over to skis, snow shoes, or a snowmobile once the lake froze. However, between open water season, and solid ice season, there are a few days to weeks where it is not safe to travel by lake AT ALL. This is when there is too much ice for a boat to sail, and not enough ice to hold a person or vehicle. This time is called the “freeze up.”
TRANSITION - sounds
How exactly does a lake freeze? It’s something I’ve always taken for granted as someone who grew up in the north country, but now that I think about it, I never actually knew the science behind how it works! Turns out, it's a pretty fascinating process that actually starts in the summer time!
Once the air starts to cool down towards the end of summer, the water in the lakes cool down too. At first, just the very top of the water begins to cool down, but soon, the top layer of water becomes cooler than the bottom layer. When water cools down, it becomes more dense and heavy. This means that when the top layer of water becomes colder than the bottom layer, it actually sinks below the warmer water, and the new top layer can start cooling off. Pretty cool right!? The lake water will continue this cooling cycle until it drops down to 39* fahrenheit, or about 4* celsius.
Once the top layer of water gets down to 39* the water molecules spread out and actually get less dense and lighter again! This means that instead of sinking down and swapping places with the warm water, the cold water now stays at the surface, and can keep cooling down until it reaches 32* and begins to crystalize into ice. Isn’t that amazing?! Once that very top layer has crystalized, as long as it stays below 32* outside, the ice will continue to get thicker and stronger, until eventually, it is strong enough for people and animals to walk on! The colder it is outside while the lake is freezing, the faster it freezes. Sometimes, a fast freeze cana actually be more dangerous than a slow one, something Anne learned first hand, and wrote about In her first book, Woodswoman.
Anne wrote about a time she helped a neighbor move on an especially dangerous thanksgiving day during a freeze up on Black Bear lake. An elderly couple had a camp near Anne’s cabin, one time while they were staying at camp for thanksgiving the man had a heart attack and had to go to the hospital for treatment while his wife stayed behind to pack up their things before winter. Unfortunately, that night it got very cold, 10* fahrenheit, and the ice was starting to freeze. Just one more cold night, and the lake would be frozen until spring. The problem was that the only way to move the couple's belongings out of their camp was by boat! Can you imagine trying to move an entire camp worth of furniture and supplies by ski?? Anne wanted to help the couple out, but they were running out of time FAST!
Already the ice was half an inch thick after just one cold night. Luckily Anne was able to break through with her little motor boat and collect a load of things from her neighbor. Because time was running out, Anne loaded up her own boat, then loaded up the couple’s little row boat and towed it behind, so she would not need to make as many trips. Already by the time they got the two boats loaded up the ice had doubled in thickness, and Anne had to break through an entire inch of ice with her boat, being careful not to puncture the hull and sink. At times she had to break a path with an oar to keep the boats safe. It took her an hour to go just 1 mile.
After Anne dropped of her last load of things along with her neighbor, she turned around to go home, only to find the pathway she had just traveled through already filled with ice! She was very nervous for her journey back home.
The gravity of my situation suddenly struck. Could I make it back to my new home, or would I be frozen fast in the middle of Black Bear Lake? If the ice imprisoned me in the boat, there would be no way to reach shore. The ice would not be thick enough to walk upon, yet probably too thick to chop through with my oars. If only I had thought to bring my axe! It occurred to me that I could freeze to death overnight in my own boat within sight of my cabin.
Adrenaline pumped through me. I gunned the motor and rammed the boat up the narrow waterway faster than it should go. We had left my neighbor’s boat at the landing, overturned for the winter. If mine sprung a leak or if the motor sheared a pin, I’d be in real trouble. My gamble was that the aluminum was strong enough to withstand the banging and crunching.
No trip has ever seemed so torturous or long or lonely as my shattering, smashing, desperate sprint for home on that ice-making Thanksgiving night. When I finally reached the cove and shut off the engine, the silence soothed me like a benediction. Then I heard the faintest of whispers. Peering over the stern, I realized with a shudder that the ice had already sealed the path directly behind me.
TRANSITION - another voice
While an actively freezing lake is extremely dangerous, a lake that has a thick layer of ice is a very helpful way to travel for Adirondackers. However, it’s very important to check the ice to make sure it is safe before trying to walk on it. Anne had some smart techniques and tools for safely navigating freshly frozen lakes. Before even stepping foot on the ice, she cut a test hole, and made sure the ice was at least 3 inches thick, once it was thick enough, she got her secret weapon ready.
First I cut a straight spruce pole about 8 feet long and hammered a nail through one end. If I fell through, I could lay the pole across the hole to either edge and haul myself out, or drive the nail end into the ice like a long claw to get purchase. The other end of the pole served as a sounding surface. As I walked, I kept tapping the pole ahead of my feet on the ice. Good ice makes a solid resonant thwang; rotten ice, a dull thud; thin ice, a high short tap.
TRANSITION - another voice
In a perfect world, Anne would be able to just stay home when the ice was unsafe to walk on and inhibiting boat travel, but of course, life isn’t perfect. In her second book, Beyond Black Bear Lake, Anne writes about a time she stayed with a friend for a while in the winter after receiving medical treatment for a nerve condition that made her hands very painful in the cold. The treatment worked, and her hands recovered well, but then she was faced with the difficult task of journeying home to her cabin across Black Bear Lake in the winter time.
The ice on the lake was thick enough to be safe to walk on, but a recent warm spell had melted the top layer and left 2 inches of water. There was no way Anne could cross the ice in all that wet while wearing snowshoes and pulling a sled! The water would make the ice extra slippery, ruin the supplies in her sled, and get Anne herself wet. The only alternative was for Anne to travel through the woods. This was a longer distance than going across the ice, and because the weather had been warm, the snow would be soggy and sticky.
The first quarter mile Anne was able to follow a snowmobile trail, which meant she could walk on firmly packed snow, and make good time. Once she had to leave the trail though, the going got tough.
I sank half a foot with every step. And every time I raised a snowshoe, ten pounds of mush clung to it. Yet without the snowshoes, I went up to my knees. The poor Dogs had it even worse, plunging belly-deep with every step. That snow was the consistency of mashed potatoes!
Normally, the walk to her cabin took an hour, but this time, over 2 hours into the journey, Anne still was not home. At this point, it was 5pm, and pitch black, something my fellow NYers are very familiar with. Anne had a large flashlight, but the battery ran out, and when she tried to replace it, she found she had been given the wrong size at the store, and it would not fit! This meant Anne was half a mile from her cabin with her dogs, no light, in deep slush, exhausted, hungry, and towing her sled.
Anne debated turning to the lake, and walking on the ice, but did not want to take that risk. Her only other choice was to park her sled, find the power line trail, and walk the rest of the way without the added weight. She could come back for the sled the next day when it was light out. Anne found a tiny extra flashlight in her backpack that she had forgotten about, which she used to find her way to the powerline before it too ran out of battery. It was dark and foggy, and even though they were close to her cabin, Anne was completely lost. Her dog Condor whined at her in exasperation because he was sick of walking around in the woods and wanted his supper! Suddenly, Anne had a realization.
He knew exactly where he was and could see in the dark far better than I could. No wonder he was impatient. So I knocked the mashed potatoes from my snowshoes for the three hundredth time and followed the dogs. In thirty minutes we were at the back door of West of the Wind, no homecoming had ever felt better.
Phew! Thank goodness Anne had her dogs with her. Without them she could easily have gotten so lost she never made it home at all. Living in the Adirondacks in the winter can sometimes be a dangerous and scary thing. Especially for someone like Anne who lived so far away from the road!
TRANSITION - sounds
Sometimes winter in the Adirondacks is dangerous, but it's always cold, dark, and beautiful. For those of us who live here all year round, we often take winter for granted. The snow comes as early as octoberber, stays as late as May, makes our driveways hazardous, our schooldays late, and our yards into fairytale scenes. The best way to enjoy winter in the Adirondacks is to embrace it. Curl up inside with a mug of hot chocolate to rest and be cozy, but don’t forget to get outside too!
A few weeks ago we played outside with a group of 2nd graders in 1* weather, and everybody had fun! It’s too cold to make snowmen, and you need to make sure to cover your hands and ears, wear enough layers, and keep moving, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go out. Have you ever stood outside on a cold but sunny winters day and felt the faint warmth on your face? It’s one of my favorite things to do in winter.
Anne had many treacherous adventures during her Adirondack winters, but she also saw many beautiful things. Anne’s adventures remind us to (safely!) get outside and enjoy nature, even in the depths of winter.
TRANSITION - ADKX Podcast conclusion - Thank you for joining us for an episode of ADKX-tra Credit. Ask us a question, or tell us what you thought by clicking the link above the episode description. This podcast is brought to you by Adirondack Experience, the museum on Blue Mountain Lake. Our mission is to expand understanding of Adirondack history and the relationship between people and the Adirondack wilderness, fostering informed choices for the future. If you want to learn more fun Adirondack history visit our website theadkx.org