Winterlust. Bernd Brunner
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offers a pale imitation of what you can expect from winter in Europe or North America. The locals start preparing for the cold season in July. Residents of Rio de Janeiro, adapted to the warmth, perceive their average winter temperature of seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit (24°C) as cold, and when cooler wind from the Atlantic blows in, chasing off the rain and lowering humidity levels, the beaches empty and many people wrap up in sweaters, scarves, woolen caps, and parkas.
A few thousand miles farther south, cold once again has a grip on everything. Whether British-American captain and seal hunter John Davis and his men were actually the first people to navigate Antarctic waters, as well as to set foot on the Antarctic continent, on February 7, 1821, cannot be proven with absolute certainty; however, Davis did come upon a frozen desert the likes of which no one had ever seen. Because temperatures here remain well below freezing—they rise to between minus twenty-two and minus thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit (−30 to −35°C) in the summer—the snow of the preceding year is simply buried, sinking ever deeper into the ice sheets as it is compressed under the precipitation of the current year. There are places where the ice sheet is three miles (nearly 5 kilometers) thick; air bubbles in old ice preserve details about the atmosphere and climate of bygone eras. Despite the constant deep freeze, however, the ice here is not eternal. The relentless pressure eventually causes it to sink to the Antarctic floor, and from there it flows along the seabed to the coast and out into the ocean.
If fall and spring are regarded as times of transition, then summer and winter become the real seasons. In the Bible, the story of creation tells of day and night, heat and cold, summer and winter. In subtropical and tropical regions, where there is little variation in the length of the days and the intensity of the sun, it makes sense to talk about only two or at most three seasons. In polar latitudes, two seasons suffice: the long winter and a brief summer. Dividing the annual cycle into three or four distinct periods dates back to antiquity, when seasons were tied to the demands of agriculture.
The ancient Egyptians, for example, knew three seasons: the season of flooding (late summer and fall), the season of emergence (the emergence of seeds, that is, in winter and spring), and the season of harvest (summer). Our current perception of four seasons is a phenomenon of central and higher latitudes. Countries in this part of the world were culturally dominant, which meant they could disseminate their concept of four seasons far and wide. People divided up the year in the hopes of gaining dominion over it and to make it easier to plan for recurring tasks. We cannot be sure exactly when this categorization caught on, although we could look for a connection to the four elements and their qualities—warm, cold, wet, and dry—or see a parallel with the phases of human life—childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. From there, it is certainly only a small step to personify the seasons, as we do with Old Man Winter, for example. But more on this later.
The Sámi, the original inhabitants of Scandinavia, think in terms of at least eight seasons. Breaking up the year like this makes more sense for the processes intertwined with their lives. Where they live, “real winter,” or Dálvvie, is preceded by “early winter,” which they call Tjakttjadálvvie. Early winter is a time of migration, not only for the retreating sun, but also for the reindeer, which gradually move to winter pastures. Real winter is the focal period. It is a time of nurturing. Quiet sets in. Everything is hidden under a thick layer of snow that is viewed as protecting the earth, and reindeer use their hooves to uncover the lichens that serve as their sustenance. Then the sun slowly fights its way back, announcing “late winter,” or Gijrradálvvie, and with it, the time of awakening. Snow still covers the land, but icicles everywhere begin to drip, and female reindeer move to the places where they will bear their calves in May or June.
In the Northern Hemisphere, winter begins when the sun reaches the deepest point of its annual trajectory on its southern turning radius. The winter solstice, as it is known, is the shortest day of the year and the sun appears—provided the sky is clear—particularly briefly. For meteorologists, December 1 is the first day of winter (for statistical purposes, they prefer to calculate the seasons in entire months). Nowadays, however, it feels like winter starts much earlier, its onset indicated by certain natural phenomena. In ancient times, there were a multitude of signs. For some, it was the disappearance of the bees; for others, the song of a particular bird. For the Coast Salish peoples of the Pacific Northwest, the peeping of frogs signaled the change from fall to winter and from winter to spring. Phenology is a widespread and recognized method of observing natural events. It connects the arrival of winter with such changes as the falling of larch needles in the Pacific Northwest and Central Europe. Winter is considered to be over in those areas when the catkins on hazelnut trees release their pollen and the skunk cabbage blooms.
As a result of climate change, the course of the seasons has shifted and become ever more unpredictable. Winters in general are getting shorter, while growing seasons are getting longer. A further rise in temperature is expected for the cold time of year, while at the same time, winters will be wetter. The early onset of spring creates problems: there’s no food for the proverbial early birds’ offspring, and no pollinating insects for early-blooming plants, because the bugs are still attuned to winter’s former cycles. On the one hand, farmers are happy that they can begin to sow spring barley, oats, and sugar beets early; on the other, they’re afraid that winter’s freezing temperatures might return and inflict significant damage on tender young plants.
If we want to understand how winter used to be, we rely on sources that retain its imprint: the width of tree rings, as well as the records and tools of people who lived through older times. All this input is woven into the complex network of meaning we call winter. What factors, moods, concepts, figures, and myths are most prominently associated with this season? What answers do history, science, and, not least of all, literature—which is uniquely able to illuminate the no-man’s-land between reality and imagination—have to offer?
And is winter really the worst time of year? Though it can certainly involve challenging experiences, icy cold, and unpleasantness, there are people who laugh it off, and for me personally, this season evokes both inspiring concepts and beautiful memories. Do you remember the first time you felt snow on your skin? When you thought you could smell it? When your ears hurt so badly that you couldn’t think of anything except the closest source of warmth? We long for winter. Winterlust—which, like “wanderlust,” is something to be enjoyed in nature—encompasses an unfolding of the human senses as we experience the particular enchantments of this time of year. And there must be a deeper logic running through the pattern of seasonal changes. As nature writer Wilhelm Lehmann once wrote, “[Winter] is the sunset of the year as nature settles down to sleep. But no matter how much this sleep resembles death, the resemblance is superficial, for all is merely resting so that it can rise revitalized once again.”
Anavik wearing wooden snow goggles, Bathurst Inlet, Canada, 1916
Crunching Underfoot
SNOW LIBERATES THE senses because it lays a mantle of uniformity over the land: a white blanket, sometimes visibly contoured by the wind, drapes itself over everything. The scene looks smoothed out, tidied up. Time freezes and nothing moves. Covered in a mass of snow, a fallen tree is transformed into a dramatic sculpture. The warming sun entices you out of the shadows into pure winter freshness. Except for the creaking under your soles, quiet reigns; it’s as if someone were filtering out the acoustics of civilization.
Snowflakes swallow sound, but if you are lucky, you can hear them quietly falling. In calm weather they fall at twenty decibels, which is just below a whisper. The air between their crystals distinguishes them from other forms of frozen water. Acoustic waves get trapped in the air pockets and are then endlessly refracted by the branching patterns of the crystals until they all but trail off. You could compare the effect with