So what is a Canadian supposed to do with that kind of weather? Go to the beach of course.

I live about 15 minutes from the beach – from Lake Erie. Since it has not been above zero (freezing) here for about 45 days, the amount of ice cover on the Great Lakes is quite high, with most of them being fully covered. Lake Erie is one that is fully covered since it is the shallowest of the 5 Great Lakes. But I think the last number I saw is that all 5 of them together are 95% covered in ice...

In the summer this beach is packed, but usually this time of year not so much. However there were quite a few people out walking on water...

So here we are still on the beach I think – it is hard to tell where the beach stops and the lake starts:



Now we have walked a bit further out and we are on the lake now:



The ice is quite thick – this is just the top layer:



As it hits something, the ice tends to bunch up, so we get this little ice hills:



Yes I’m dressed too warmly – I was sweating by the time we got back to the car, but you never know what the wind is going to be like here:



Next we walked over to the old pier – it is normally blocked off by a fence across it’s entire width quite a distance from the shore, but of course that was easy to get around when things are frozen:



3 layers of ice piling up here:



Walking out to the end:



And I walked out a little beyond the end as well – I swim like a rock, so the only time I would be out this deep is when it’s frozen:



Now heading back – note the houses up on the hill:



From up on that hill, the arrow points to the lighthouse at the end of the pier to give you an idea how far out we were:



Anyway, the long range forecasts here say that because of the lakes being frozen over, we are looking at a cooler than normal March and April. For those who might not be all that familiar with the Great Lakes, this one is the 4th in terms of surface area of the 5 Great Lakes. But it’s still pretty large – 388 kms long and 92 kms wide. It’s like living next to one huge ice cube...

Anyway, hope you enjoyed seeing our lake like this. I used to do this all the time as a kid, but our winters have been so mild that this sort of ice is unusual anymore.

Cheers, Al

 

It hasn t dropped below 18+ here, its starting to warm up a bit now though, another month and it will be up to a bearable 30+ before getting silly with 40-50+ degrees. After 16 years of pissing rain and miserable winters in Norway, I am enjoying the sunshine and not missing the snow and ice.

nice pics

 

This makes Dallas, Texas look like the Caribbean.

 

So Al, seems you found Superman's home

 

Wow and I thought we have had a bad winter here in Boston (we have)
Over 100" of snow still on the ground here-makes me wonder why we stay here during the winter
But can't beat our fall weather, our food, Cape Cod, and our sports teams-that all makes living here worth it

 

It looks really cold out there. Grrr.

Where I am the weather looks more and more like spring and we have just started our archery competition

 

Being a lifelong Bruin fan I have to agree with you on the sports team thing. They had a good weekend too.....

 

That looks mighty cold Al............do you know a place called Huntsville?

We visited my sister and her family this last Christmas in Toronto and they also have a 'cottage' 2.5hrs drive North in Huntsville. I've never seen snow like it and boy was it cold, -25 some nights....

All a bit of a novelty for us London based Brits, for a while that is.

 

Nice photographs Al, thanks for sharing!

 

Those ice hills look like frozen waves.

We hunkered down last week with wind chills @22 F. School closed in anticipation of ice on the roads. Stayed inside and ate gumbo.

Thanks for the pics!

South Louisiana USA

 

It's funny how +2 feels like shorts weather after the month plus deep freeze!

And for Spike, Huntsville gets so much more snow than Toronto. It's location gets all that extra cold and snow off Lake Huron. You probably thought you were stuck in the new ice age!

 

Thanks guys - glad you enjoyed seeing our frozen tundra.

I am familiar with Huntsville certainly. It is in the middle of one of the areas known as the "snowbelt." So snowfall there is quite high from the winds whipping of lake Huron.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowbelt

Where I am, we get snow from both lake Erie and lake Huron depending on the wind direction. I'm not technically in the snowbelt, but when one of those streamers of snow comes off lake Huron, well it can get nasty pretty quick. But it's very hit and miss - a few kms either way can mean you have almost no snow, or are buried in it. Last winter we actually had more snow, and it started in early December and was here until the spring. We had one 18 hour period where 1.5 meters of snow fell...

Every year the municipality where I live comes along in the fall and puts stakes in the ground at the edge of the lawn at the road. They are usually 3 feet high, and these are to tell the snowplow driver where the curb is. Mind you he still chews up my lawn every year...grrrr...

You can't see any of those stakes - they are all buried now. I put in 5 large fiberglass stakes that are about 5 feet above the grade when fully installed. While I was putting them up my wife said "Wow these are really tall - do we need them to be this tall? Everyone else has shorter stakes?" Mine are the only stakes you can see now...

 

Cool! Uphill shots too - more challenging than flat ground for stance and body alignment. Reminds me of my field archery days back in the 70's and early 80's - you basically walked through the woods on a course of 28 targets, all varying distances and target sizes, including many uphill and downhill shots.

Also VERY pleased to see recurves in use, and not bows with training wheels on them!

Cheers, Al

 

I thought you guys stayed inside with the heat on if it went below +20C.

My wife is from Ballarat in Vic., and some people I know from Brisbane said they could never live in such a cold place. LOL!!