The ice broke on the North Saskatchewan River just last week, on April 15. I wasn't there to see it crack and buckle, but today I walked along its banks and watched the ice floes in this first moment marking the end of the Canadian winter. The North Saskatchewan is the Northern Branch of a great river whose headwaters are in the massive Columbia Icefields in the Rocky Mountains. It flows Northeast from its glacial source through forests and then aspen parklands and finally onto the prairies on its journey to Lake Winnipeg.
Some ice blocks are bigger than elephants.
They crash into the bank, turn, twist, tilt upward and pile up until the power of the water unblocks them with a great grinding noise. Then, the bank loses yet another yard of soft earth in that ageless process that has shaped the contours of this mighty river. It was while watching the river that I spotted her sitting alone on an ice floe, seemingly oblivious to the great workings of water and ice. She's a little thing, a drab mottled brown like the crisp dead leaves that will provide camouflage for her brood. For color she has but a little fringe of white on her tail and the leading edge of her wings and a small band of blue of her wings.