When a Frozen Lake Sings

Bulletins from a French butcher's shop

I hope you all enjoyed a lovely Christmas and am happy to confirm that I shall be Substacking onward into the New Year, in pursuit of my dual objectives: keeping my neurons from rusting solid, and of course becoming a millionaire influencer. So far, I’m proud to announce, my neurons may be creaking but I’m a $256 influencer!

For my last piece this year I wanted to describe something rather magical. Earlier this week, I heard a sound so pure and otherworldly I worried that the Seven Trumpets were sounding, and that apocalypse was nigh. I was beside an icy lake, knee deep in a snowdrift at the time. They tell us that hell is a lake of burning fire, but what if it’s just cold and wet?

Then the sound rang out again and I felt its haunting echo rippling across the lake. It rang again and again but still no apocalypse - just the strangest of pulses, somewhere between the hoot of a lovesick owl and the bong of a Buddhist gong.

I was visiting Lac Genin, a popular beauty spot in the hills above our valley. Surrounded by a forest of pines, the lake is part of what locals call Little Canada, a mountain sanctuary similar in natural beauty and rustic appeal to the Canadian Rockies.

In summer, the lake hosts swimmers and fishermen and hikers and families that flock to the charming Auberge on its banks. In winter it is often cut off by heavy snowfalls. Some of the roads through the forest are cleared, but snow tyres or chains are essential. The lake eventually turns to ice, and if temperatures stay low enough, it becomes a skaters’ paradise.

We drove up there last week, thrilling to the snow that blanketed our region just in time for Christmas. That morning the sun was slow to clear the mists, yielding shimmering landscapes of wonder and light.

And then came that sound. I was standing there transfixed, oblivious to the cold, when a man on ice skates glided into view. He was carrying a long pole and pausing to tap the ice. It was the proprietor of the Auberge, testing the ice’s thickness for skating. This was no apocalyptical trumpeter; it was an old guy in jeans and a woolly hat playing an ice concerto with the entire lake as his instrument.

I would later learn about acoustic dispersion and the sounds created by vibrating ice. There are YouTube videos entitled “Singing Ice” and “What Makes Frozen Lakes Sing?” But that came later. What I could see at that moment was this lone skater, playing the lake like a drum, the ice like a skin pulled tight over a water-filled shell.

It sounded to me like the aural equivalent of the aurora borealis – an extraterrestrial sound experience as thrilling as those psychedelic rainbows spawned by rampaging solar particles. It was truly fabulous to witness. A simple tap on the ice, and a swelling musical note that billowed across the lake. And as the Lac Genin maestro – or do I mean micetro? – skated around, tapping out his test rhythms, I thought, not for the first time, how lucky I was to have found this place, this mountain life.

It turned out later that the proprietor had judged the ice not yet thick enough for public skating. He’s been testing it for years and knows when it’s OK for a single experienced skater but still too uneven to allow trampling hordes. The auberge owns the land around the lake and would technically be responsible for any accident; in summer it supplies lifeguards to monitor its shores.

Suffice it to say that we will be returning often to Lac Genin in the coming year. We’ll be lucky to hear that sound again – they only test for less than an hour every few days – but we often eat at the Auberge’s restaurant overlooking the water. There are fondues, of course, and pork chops grilled on an open fire accompanied by unlimited helpings of frites.

In the meantime, consider it apocalypse postponed. We’re having a proper winter up here in the mountains and frankly, it’s as close as I’ve ever been to heaven. Happy New Year!