I’ve been gone for a while. And during my absence, spring apparently crept right in upon the good old Missoula Valley. I had not thought ahead about the impending change of seasons when I left for the Hawaiian island of Maui in early March. What I was thinking about at the time was escaping the mullygrumps of late winter and enjoying the soft air and soothing waters of the Pacific while celebrating the marriage of my pal Smilin’ Jack and his beautiful bride Goldilocks.When I landed in Missoula last week, the truth of the matter hit me. Spring had sprung, and change was upon the land. Then niece Jenny appeared, armed with a couple of pages of musings on the winter that is now gone, and the wonders it held. I liked what she had to say so much that, with her permission, I decided to share those thoughts with you. Here’s what she wrote:
“On Tuesdays and Thursdays I leave the world of diapers, toy trucks, and runny noses and become a professional ecologist again for a few hours. After delivering my daughter Iris to the neighbor’s house and my son Will to preschool, I put all things domestic aside: no dishes, no grocery shopping, no laundry. In short, no distractions.
“I grew up listening to my Grandma Helen reminisce about the Montana winters of her youth: the heaps of snow, the sub-zero temperatures, the ice so thick you could drive your car on it. As she got older she spent less time outside and more time watching the Weather Channel from her comfortable blue chair in her little Missoula apartment. Her eyes would brighten at the promise of snow in the forecast, but the next day she would curse the weatherman for making false promises as the snow would once again skirt Missoula or never materialize at all. That’s why I continued to steal away to ski on Tuesday and Thursday mornings n because each time, I was sure it would be the last of the good snow.
“But it kept snowing all winter long.
“Predictions about the future of winter in Montana suggest that as my kids get older, it won’t be like this. The planet is warming up, and local weather patterns and pace of seasonal events are changing. According to University of Montana scientist Steve Running, local impacts of climate change will include the demise of Montana’s glaciers and mountain snowpack. He forecasts that within fifty years, there will be no more snow in Missoula. By then I will be sitting in my comfortable blue chair regaling my grandchildren with stories of the relatively fantastic winters of my youth.
“Last summer, when the temperature in Missoula hovered over a hundred degrees for days on end, the idea of climate change shifted from a global abstraction to a local reality. The landscape slowly sizzled until the fire season ignited in early August. It was too hot to open the doors and windows and too smoky to play outside. Instead of hiking, fishing, and camping, we found ourselves doing the activities we reserve for the cabin-fever days of mid-winter n swimming at the indoor pool, reading books at the library, playing in friends’ basements. By the end of the summer we had logged 11 days over one hundred degrees, the driest July on record and the most days ever where the overnight temperature remained above 60 degrees. We were getting a glimpse of our future: hot, dry summers and longer, more intense fire seasons.
“In my overheated state (I am of Norwegian descent, after all), I got really worried. I realized there is no place left on the globe that is truly unaffected by human activities. I questioned how I could possibly pass onto my kids the sense of wonder at the natural world that has propelled me through my life when what I really felt was gloomy and powerless in the face of these unprecedented changes.
“But when that first snow fell before Thanksgiving, I relaxed a little bit. I played outside with my kids. I took deep breaths of cold, clean air. And as the snow continued to fall throughout the winter, defying all my expectations, I felt my sense of wonder creeping back in. Fresh dustings of snow in the mornings were criss-crossed with the tracks of local raccoons, the neighbor’s cat, and all those white-tailed deer. Will’s homemade sled jumps transformed our flat yard into an adventure course. Iris, who learned to walk when the first snow fell, became an expert with the snow shovel, making zigzag paths down the driveway. My kids think this is what winter is all about. For now, it is, and that is reason enough for hope.”
I like how niece Jenny writes. And I, too, will cherish the winter now gone, even as I look forward to the many splendors of the lengthening and warming days ahead. I hope you do, too. It’s great to be home.
Greg Tollefson is a freelance Missoula writer whose column appears each week in Outdoors. He can be reached at gtollefson@bresnan.net.
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