January 27th, 2002:
It's bright and cold today; -26· when I got up this
morning, after a low of –30. No clouds and no wind makes for pleasant
weather despite the cold.
There are a lot of snowmobiles in the Park this
weekend. With modern snowmobiling gear the cold doesn't mean much to
them. Jack Woulfe tells me the new machines are very quiet, compared to
the older ones, but some people pay two or three hundred dollars to have
a special muffler installed. When they hit the throttle, the muffler
gives out a blat like an angry moose. Maturity?
Yesterday
was the Greenwater Ski Loppet. I walked over to the Cove to see how they
were making out, and Shirley Baker, at the registration desk, said they
had about ninety registered. Two busloads came from Regina, and many
brought their own vehicles. I went over to the trailhead and got some
pictures of the busses unloading, skiers sorting out equipment and
waxing up, and heading out onto the trails. They sure were a fit looking
bunch!
I talked to Shirley again in the afternoon. Many
skiers had returned (some having gone twice around the longest trail,
for about 50 kms!) and reported the trails very good considering the
lack of snow. It was cold yesterday; likely never did get up as high as
–20·, and there were some cases of frostbite on cheeks and fingers.
From Steiestol Lake to the Trailhead is generally downhill, and skiers
travel a bit faster, consequently generating more wind chill. One skier
wore a cloth face mask. When he got back to the Cove, he brought it in
to show them – it was frozen in the shape of his face, just like a
plaster cast!
It was really wintery the early part of last week –
early Wednesday morning the thermometer read –37·, and it was still
–33· at 10 am. Don't think it got above –26· all day. At least
there was no wind, and the sun was out part of the time. That makes the
cold easier to bear.
It started to snow lightly Thursday evening, and by
Friday morning there was a couple of inches of fresh snow. Dang! It's
not worthwhile starting the snow blower for two inches of fluffy stuff,
so it was shovel time again. Not as if I need the exercise!
I
walked down to the Marina to get a photo of the big pile of snow where
they cleared some parking space, and while there I watched as the Park
tractor scraped snow off the skating ice. The Greenwater Zamboni! We are
building up to a fairly decent base of snow; everyone would love to see
four or five feet of it, of course, but we are not complaining too
loudly.
In our walks around the core area, we have seen
dog-type tracks where we suspected there was no dog, and assumed it to
be a coyote. Drobots have had a coyote snooping around under their bird
feeder, likely looking for mice that might be scavenging for seeds, and
yesterday morning Doreen gave me a holler. There was a beautiful coyote
casually strolling down the path that runs along the lake, less than a
hundred feet away. It stopped and left a deposit, then carried on. Of
course, as soon as it was out of sight, I remembered I am supposed to be
a photographer. It was the size of a German Shepherd, and its ears were
not particularly large, making me wonder if it could be a small wolf. On
the other hand, its tracks were much smaller than wolf tracks I had seen
at the other house. There were tracks over to our deck, under the bird
feeders; I had assumed them to be deer tracks, but in the deep snow I
couldn't tell deer tracks from coyote tracks. Looks like we should have
a camera in the bedroom, ready to shoot.
