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"On December 6th at 2am, Ramsey Lake finally froze over.
Practically salivating, I was there to watch. As far as I'm concerned, in this
lake country of middle and northern Ontario, frozen water equals freedom in the
form of skis, skates, and snowshoes. This year, for my first time, freedom
includes snowkiting. All fall I'd been flying a BEST 2.8 and a NewTech 3.6
getting ready for this moment. As luck would have it, it didn't snow for a week
after the water first closed over leaving Ramsey an enormous
multi-kilometer-squared rink...all the better for icekiting! 3 days after the
first freeze the ice was 3" thick and the brave (or foolish) among us began to venture onto it with
skates, bravely (or foolishly) ignoring the groans and gratings all around. (For
those who don't know frozen lakes, they sing a haunting tune.) Fortunately, fool
as I may be, it didn't take much brain to think of bringing a kite! For 5 hours I whipped myself around, learning all those things you can't
learn sitting still, dog vainly trying to keep up, girlfriend not even trying,
doing a pirouette here and there. Under moonlight and starlight, the clock
struck midnight, then 1, and then steel struck a line and, well, that was that.
The next day wasn't so pretty, as you can see, but the wind was out in force, as
were the neighbours, and while my BEST was broken, my NewTech was tuggin'. An
hour after this picture was taken, however, steel struck again. This time it was
a neighbour skating over to say "Wow, Gee Whiz!" which she said again after I
explained my warning about "the line" referred to the recently severed nylon
variety and not a crack in the ice! With the tenacity of a 3 legged dog I was out again with 3 lines shortly
thereafter..." -
Andrew Bennett / Ramsey Lake Canada |
