The Ice Has Broken

As the old saying has it, you can never tire of watching fire, water and other people working. Northerners would also add that you can look endlessly at ice drifting down a river. Many people take days off work or travel back to their birthplaces for the sake of this captivating spectacle, while still others head down to the river during their lunch break or go for a stroll along the bank on the way home in the evening.

At this time of year you can often catch sight of seals, which are also pleased to welcome the spring sunshine and happily pose for photographs. One of them managed to live in a creek alongside the Arkhangelsk Yacht Club for a week or so, taking food virtually from the hands of Arkhangelskites. It became a genuine local celebrity.

Announcements advertising May-time marches to meet the ice appear on city websites, and there’s a tradition of betting on the day when the bulk of the ice will appear – a sort of sweepstakes for groups of tipsy friends. And although the real meaning of all the rituals associated with the drifting ice has now long been forgotten, centuries ago the opening-up of the rivers was a tremendous event for inhabitants of the North. It was associated with the arrival of spring and the reawakening of nature – meaning winter had surrendered and the circle of life could resume its natural course once again.

Whole families of northern villagers would come out to watch the ice drifting by. Young people in traditional costumes would dance, while the head of the family would make an offering to placate the river and ensure that no family members would drown. Torches of lit straw would be placed on the ice to float down the river, and would be visible from far away, even in the twilight. Fishermen also made offerings to the river god during the springtime melt, in hopes of a good catch and protection from storms.*

I spent my entire childhood near the river.
I suspect that my parents must have had several moments of blind panic on seeing, for the nth time, their errant offspring soaked from head to toe, tumbling into the water during the ice-surfing season.

Oh what a wonderful time it was! We saw ourselves as sea captains, conquerors of the broad wastes of the Arctic, with not a thought in our heads for safety. For us kids, jumping from ice floe to ice floe was better than any holiday we could imagine.

The ice back then remained almost intact, arriving in town in enormous sheets, hitting the banks and coming aground on the sand. When they crashed into each other, ice floes shattered with a deafening crack that for us was almost like the shot from the Aurora – and meant it was time to storm another icy frontier.

Similarly striking impressions of childhood (written in 1913, showing that very little has changed...) are contained in the book written by my great aunt Eugenie Fraser, The House by the Dvina:

Spring returned. The river lost its pristine whiteness and became tinged with a dull lilac hue. A fast-flowing stream like a dark ribbon appeared in the middle and widened. Suddenly, as if possessed by a wild fury, the river began to shatter her fetters. The broken floes, carried by the churning waters, began their journey to the sea. With ever-increasing speed, clambering over each other, rising high on end and crashing down, colliding, sending showers of splintered ice, they rushed ahead carrying everything with them, destroying all obstacles. On their surface could still be seen the tracks of sledges, the discarded debris and circles of small pines surrounding the waterholes where only recently women gathered to rinse their washing.

Gradually the pace slows down. The river, sparkling in the spring sunshine, now flows serenely on her way. A few small isolated floes, like swans, sail in the wake of others and vanish in the Arctic depths.

In many northern regions, the springtime ice melt is associated with the deeply unpleasant experience of flooding. If the ice covers the entire width of the river, the water level can rise so high that entire villages are cut off for several days or weeks. The vernal waters lap against fences and dwellings – and the next thing we know, they end up in the middle of the river. Seized by the tempestuous current, huts are spirited off toward the sea.

Even now, nature finds a way to get around all of the Emergency Ministry’s efforts and swamp the lower reaches of Arkhangelsk. In the village of Kemsky, or Maimaks, Ekonomiya, Brevennik or Khabarka, it is not uncommon for people to wake up in the morning to find the river outside their windows, in place of the porch. My grandmother told me about how she clambered out through the kitchen window straight into a boat to get to work.

But no-one looking at the lace-like river, with its kaleidoscopic patterns shifting by the minute, wants to worry about problems. The ice drift is a time for meditation, for self-reflection.

It is at moments like this that you catch yourself thinking that you really love your city and never want to leave it. You stand on the riverbank and realize that hundreds of other people around you are experiencing the same feelings. At the waters edge, a “walrus,” a hardy winter-swimmer, wearing only swim trunks, is sunbathing. Against the icy backdrop, he looks exotic.

A particular ritual is to find a large ice floe and methodically break it up into slush while trying to pick out pretty patterns in the shards. For photographers this is also paradise.

Every year I am troubled by the same question: Where do all the ice floes go? I wouldn’t want to think that these hundreds and thousands of crystal ships simply melt away. I pity them. I reassure myself that the current carries them all the way to the North Pole, where it is always cold and they can maintain their perfect beauty. RL