I could hear the snow.
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It was coming down fairly heavily, hitting the dry leaves in front of me, and the impact of the icy flakes on the crispy autumn leftovers made a constant hiss of ticks clicks. There was no wind, no hum from vehicles on the main road a couple kilometres away, not even the sound from a plane passing overhead.
The only thing audible was coming from the flakes sifting down from the sky.
The place I was at wasn’t particularly remote. I was northwest of Cochrane, not far off Grand Valley Road. But the spot where I’d parked was surrounded by willows, pine and spruce and they, along with the winter-bare aspens and the falling snow, dampened pretty much all the ambient sound except for the constant hiss of the flakes.
It hadn’t been snowing at all when I’d left the city. In fact, heading west, I could see sun shining on the mountains. There were clouds overhead and snow was in the forecast but none was falling yet. The day was actually quite pleasant, a vast improvement over the polar blast we’d endured for most of the week before. At -10C, it felt quite balmy.
The clouds thickened as I headed northwest and a few flakes were starting to fall as I headed into the Dogpound Creek valley. Horses were idling in the pastures and I saw a mule deer doe munching away on dry grass. But as I continued on west, the snow began to fall.
This is what I was hoping for.
I really quite like being out in the falling snow. Not when it’s bitterly cold or windy, of course, but snow like this, snow coming straight down, building up on the tree branches and fence lines, landing on the backs of cattle and the manes of horses. I like it when it’s pretty.
And this was pretty.
By the time I hit Grand Valley Road, it was coming down hard. Anything beyond a couple hundred metres was hazy and indistinct and the vehicles that passed me — both of them — left a wall of white in their wake. But I wasn’t going to be on this road for long and at the first opportunity, I turned west.
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I was on a dead-end road now but it led down into a creek valley that I knew would be thick with willows. And that mine would be the first tracks in the freshly fallen snow.
The willows were indeed thick and so was the beaver house beside the creek. I wish there had been something to show the scale of this massive mound of mud and sticks but the best I could do were the drowned fenceposts in the creek. It was at least as big as the truck and twice as wide, an absolute mansion.
Past the beaver house, the trees and willows closed in. They were heaviest on the east side, mostly spruce and willows along the creek basin, while to the west there were open pastures leading up to the forested hills beyond. Through the falling snow I could see horses trudging along and a dog running back and forth in front of a house. Ravens drifted by and even with the windows rolled up, I could hear their croaks as they went.
At the end of the road, I stopped, rolled the windows down and watched the snow.
It was falling steadily, ticking off the curls of the dry leaves and accumulating in their cups. Behind them, out of focus through my lens, the grey/green tree trunks made a soft backdrop behind the aspens from one angle while the willows glowed a soft reddish orange behind the leaves and buds on another.
I sat there with my arm on the sill, cradling the camera, while the snow fell, hissing softly as the flakes collided with the surroundings and each other. For 10 minutes, that was the only sound. And then, as always happens at the quietest moments, a plane flew by, a jet-powered aluminum tube full of people heading to parts unknown, the roar of the engines coming down on me with the snow.
Time to roll on.
But not all that far.
I’d seen little puffs of white among the willows as I had driven by but just assumed they were gatherings of flakes among the forked branches. But looking more closely now as I rolled slowly along I could see they were actually catkins. Yes, some of the willows were blooming.
Could be the long stretch of warm December weather had lulled them into thinking that spring was early — despite the recent Arctic blast — or maybe they were just impatient. But no matter the reason, there they were, bright white against the backdrop of red twigs and surrounded by falling snow.
I continued north out of the valley and into the foothills forest. It was snowing even more heavily now, building up on the road and making the ditches hard to see so I kept to what I thought was the middle as I drove slowly along. The forest was thicker here, more spruce than pine, and I kept watch for deer to photograph among the trees.
And doing that, I saw the horses.
There were four of them, three back among the trees, but the fourth, a pretty roan, was out in the open beside the road. Snow was building up on its back, flakes were sticking to its mane and forelock. Some were catching on its eyelashes. It stood stoically as the snow fell, snorting a bit as the flakes tickled its nose. Its friends held back, out of the snow among the trees.
And after a few minutes of watching me watch it, the roan closed its eyes and seemed to go to sleep. I rolled on.
The snow backed off a bit as I went further west and by the time I got to the headwater meadows of Dogpound Creek, it was down to flurries. The spruce boughs were heavy with it, drooping under its weight, but the pines just shrugged it off. The breeze that had come up helped with that, shaking the fresh snow from the treetops and sending it cascading down.
By now I was south of Water Valley and the breeze had gained strength. Snow was beginning to drift across the roads and when I stopped to photograph the green ice on a frozen pond it swirled into the truck and melted on the front of my lens. So I rolled the windows up and rolled on, thinking I would make the circuit around Winchell Lake and then stop by here again for another look.
The snow had stopped falling, for the moment, at least, as I turned up a road along one of my favourite spring creeks. But every branch, every little shrub, every poplar or aspen bud held a pile of flakes. The snow had come down so straight that under the wider branches there were dips in the snow cover from their umbrella effect.
And it was when I was trying to photograph those branches that I noticed something.
There was no sound. Like, nothing. Here in the valley there was no wind and it was isolated enough that I couldn’t hear any vehicles passing by. For the moment, there were no jets overhead. And since the snow had stopped, there was no sound from it either.
So I sat perfectly still and listened. For maybe 30 seconds there was nothing. And then, a squirrel. And a chickadee. And, of course, a raven. Followed closely by the grind of a starter, the rumble of a V6 and the squeal of cheap tires compressing all that lovely, fresh snow.
The snow began to fall again over by Winchell Lake and visibility closed in as it thickened so I hurried a bit to get back to the pond with the green ice. Never made it.
Just a little ways west of the lake is a set of beaver dams on a tiny creek. I stop there often, especially in the summer and fall because the water is right beside the road and there are always interesting things to see. It all freezes over in the winter, though, and with the snowfall, I figured it would be covered in white.
Nope. There was white there, of course, but there were also reds and greens and yellows and oranges. And most of those colours were coming from the ice.
I’m only guessing but I think what happened was that the spring-fed waters of the creek froze rapidly in the -40C temperatures last week and that caused the ice to expand so quickly that it cracked and let water flow from underneath. That water brought tannins from the creek banks with it and spread rusty stains across the ice as it flowed over the frozen surface.
That water was — and still is — flowing very slightly across the ice and turning the falling snow landing on it into mush. And that mush was reflecting the dominant blues and greens of the flat light now hitting it.
It was gorgeous. So much so that I put up my little drone in the falling snow to get an overhead view of it. From that angle it kind of looked like a week-old bruise. But I liked it.
It was late afternoon now so I turned around and started heading back to town, rolling straight east down the Dogpound Creek valley past snow-covered cattle and mule deer bucks in a meadow. One of whom only had one antler. I guess they’re shedding them a bit earlier this year. By 5 p.m. I was back in the rushing city traffic.
No way to hear the hiss of falling snow or the absolute silence it left behind once it stopped in this environment. But that was fine. Because there are places close by where you can actually experience that.
So next time you’re out in the country and the flakes begin to fall, pull over, roll down the windows and listen.
You might just be able to hear the snow.
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