Singing Ice

May 25, 2006

Something new to experience; never seen, never heard, never read about, never dreamed of or imagined, never even heard of; is difficult to stumble into when one is as old as dirt. But the singing ice at Lake Louise was such an occurrence. It was like a baby tasting ice cream for the first time or like the first time a boy kisses a girl other than his mother.

I was walking, a few steps behind Annie and Elmo, along the bank about half way between Lake Louise Lodge and where the stream from the glacier pours milky water into the lake when I heard angels singing. The sound was like thousands, no millions of tiny wind chimes in different pitches blowing in varied breezes, some steady, some gusts, some fitful rushes.

I stopped; more like, froze. I looked at the trees, at the clouds scurrying over the snowy peaks, for falling rocks on the mountain sides, for a group of children with strange musical instruments coming up the trail behind me, for the angels leading the second coming. After exhausting all other possibilities, I noticed the ice. The ice was singing.

Ice, in its last throws before it dies and again becomes water, covered large portions of Lake Louise. At this stage, the ice was a carpet of ice crystals as numerous as stars or sand, the size of half used pencils, standing on end, each snuggled next to its neighbors on all sides forming a sparkling delicate layer the surface of the lake.

Gusts of wind rushed down the slopes and across the lake pushing the ice crystals into flows, and streams, and ridges, and piles, and sheets; each crystal as it moved pinging off every other crystal that it touched.

“Annie,” I said. “Come here. Listen.”

She stood beside me, head cocked. “My God, what is that?”

“It is the ice. The ice is singing.”