A few days ago I flew to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to visit my father. My dad is an elderly gentleman who doesn’t drive anymore, so he misses getting out and about. One cool spring afternoon after we had run many errands and completed everything on dads “Things To Do” list, my father said “Let’s go for a drive!” I happily agreed and asked “Where do you want to go?” to which he replied “The cottage”.
“The cottage” is located at Victoria Beach, Manitoba, a rural municipality located on the southeastern shores of Lake Winnipeg. This used to be our home away from home. My dad created the blueprints for the cottage himself, and my entire family built it ourselves. It was a labor of love. “The cottage” provided many cherished memories; However, as the years went by, my mother passed away, my brother and I moved far away from home to pursue our careers, and my father, now older, found it hard to look after our cottage himself. Eventually my dad made the difficult decision of selling this piece of our family history, but in our hearts, “The Cottage” will always be ours.
As we arrived at Victoria Beach, we drove past “The Cottage”, and then drove down to a pier where we always used to go fishing. I turned to my dad and said “I wonder if the lake is still frozen?” As we got out of the car, we heard a loud noise. It sounded like hundreds of wine glasses clinking together. Braving bitterly cold winds, we walked towards the pier, and this is what we saw…
large ice crystals hitting each other as they were bobbing in the water and then washing ashore, creating the sound similar to hundreds of wine glasses clinking together.
My father and I had never seen anything like this in our entire life. Over the years we had seen Lake Winnipeg frozen solid, and sometimes we were lucky enough to see Lake Winnipeg in the spring when the large sheets of ice were breaking up creating a loud cracking sound, but we never saw (or heard) large ice crystals like this before. The sunlight reflecting off the crystals made for an extra nice effect.
We may not own our cottage anymore, but once again Victoria Beach gave my dad and I a memory we will cherish forever and never forget. I look forward to creating more memories by going exploring with my father in the very near future.
Very unusual. The sound must have been fascinating!
Amazing! I’ve never seen that before either. And how lovely to experience it at a place so close to your hearts