St. Paul daily globe., 1892-11-27
White Bear Interest Is Second
Only to Summer
Sailing.
Skating Wings Added to the
Ordinary Form OF
Motion.
.
The Ice in Fine Shape and
IN Crowded Every
Day.

ice king. Skates are gotten out and
ground and polished. old straps hunted
up or replaced by new, while the ever
thoughtful housewives provide woolen'
mittens and comforterS in abundance.
In those communities favored with eX-
tensve fields of ice, ice boats are rigged
anew and prepared forthe seasons sport,
though their use and enjoyment is nee
essarily confined to the older and more
hardy of the sterner sex. OF all winter
sports ice boating is the most reckless
and daring, bringing its degree of ex-
citement in the same ratio, and yet the
element of danger is trifilng with an
experienced hand at the helm. The ice
yacIlttitS about like a swallow, skim
ming oyer the ice with the speed and
grace of bird, but, further than this.
takes you along in her flight, and gives
you the triumph of the wing as she
sweeps and swOops and trembles on
thr ough the air.
st. Paul is most advantageOusly situ-
ated for the pursuit of this monarch OF
all winter sports in her proximity to
White Bear lake, aud the enthusiasm in
yachting which manifested itself during
the summer at that charming sheet of
into winter, and is finding vent in an
amount of iceboating hitherto unusual
in st. Paul. White Bear is now i'll its
human, sympathetic mood when it
echoes with word and song, and its
banks are bright with well-kept lawns
and many-hued flowers. 1t is a broad,
Level Fled of Ice,
all gray between its dark brown shores
the hills sober in their fur of leaf1eSS
trees, and the fields bald and white
with snow. Ii you have never known
the excitement of a sail over the ice,
hunt up some, Yachting friend. go out
to White Bear, and you will return hay
ing experienced a new sensation. II
you cannot do this. come, and we will
mount this wayward flyer as she is
launched before the wind. As the sail
begins at moderate speed you can OBJ
serve the scene. 1t is a broad stretch
of cold and desolation, and yet, in Gid
ing about, you get glimpseS here and
there of cheerful. active life. AS you
get further out upon the lake 1t begins
to blow more, and you find yourself
fitting across from shore to
shore with quick and pleas
ant notion. Gangs of men are
working at the ice harvest; foot passeE-
gers are gingerly picking their way on
the slippery surface; groups OF men and
boys dot the Ice with their black figures
and; reflect the sunbeams from their
skates. while more retiring couples
swing along, st
Hand in Hand,
in the little bays and .coves. These bits
ofslife and color are doubly welcome in
the desert of winter, cold, clear and
stern. You go down the lake now with
good wind on the beam. The playful
breeze freshens in flaws; but you fol-
low its wayward motions; you start
when it starts, fit over the ice with its
own speed. turn and glide with the
grace and lightness of a swallow. In
deed, the swIft-dafting ice yachts are to
be compared only to great white
winged swallows skimming over the ice
as they cross and recroSS your course.
The ice seems to be running under you
with great speed, its bubbles, crystals
and lines all woven into silken web of
prismatic hues; the mounds and wind
rows seem to come up at you suddenly
and dodge past, while you begin to lie
close down in the box and clinch your
teeth in the firmness of your grip on the
hand rail. The breeze sings in the rig
ging. the runners hum over the ice.
The yacht seems more and more thing
of air. The wind, treshening all the
time, now sweeps across the lake in
powerful gusts. The sky is partly COW
cred with clouds; the gray winter has
lost its color; the wind h0WlS, the ice
crashes, the runners ring, and You
hang on in a perfect frenzy of excite
ment.
AS she turns in her sudden motions
you feel as if your body were trying to
fly on in some swift tangential course.
even though your hands. and feet re-
main. Space opens freshly before you
every moment as strange deyouring
void, and you .
Fly Into 1t
with wild, erratic motion, seemingly
beyond the rule Of human will or nat
ural law. Objects seem melted down
and drawn out into blurred elongated
forms shapes and colors are lost. Now
the wind lulls again: you listen to the
roaring of the blast sweeping up the
hillsides through the bare trees. You
hold on your course, and with the
next gust rush on with the speed of the
iron horse. The yacht sways, her eX-
treme speed makes her divergences ap-
pear like great leaps, and as she rearS,
slides sidewise with a wild, tremulouS
motion, you wonder where you will
alight. Yet she keeps on through all
these gyrations with such speed that
you have to cling with all your might
20 prevent her from flying from under
you, while a keen, shivering glee
flashes through your soul. But the
flight is done; descend from the clouds
of snow and the roaring storm on which
YOU flew as an eagle on a whirlwind
return to the common earth, dull and
gray, in the clear silence of the dying
day.