When the sun shines and the winds are minimal I love to walk along the shores of this Great Lake. Even when the temperatures are sitting at -10 degrees celsius the walk is very mediative. The lake rarely freezes because it is so deep but on a day like this when the water is perfectly still it is so clear that you can see the bottom close to the shore.
I am a fan of swans and have lots of photos of them in the archives but I decided to go for a walk late this afternoon to see if I could find some close to home. I walked east of the house and stayed close to the edge of the parks looking for these beautiful birds. I one area where I usually see up to a dozen or more was inaccessible because the ramp to the lake was piled high with snow from the ploughs.
I continued further east and finally came across a flock of them about a kilometre or more from the house. Here are my swans in winter on the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto.
…..I live next to Lake Ontario and on the weekend I saw this
Last weekend I went for a walk along Lakeshore Drive and I noticed that there was a person on the lake on a sail board. It was well below freezing and the wind was quite brisk. When I got to Rotary Peace Park I noticed that the surfer was still on the water but he seemed to be in the water more than on the board. He was clearly having trouble navigating the board to shore.
I started to get anxious because every time he fell he seemed to go further out into the lake. There was no boat near by and there were no supporters on the beach in case he ran into trouble. I watched for a long time, worrying that the longer he spent in the water the greater the risk of hypothermia kicking in. I was seconds away from dialling 911 when all of a sudden the surfer got back on the board and finally navigated his way back to shore.
What would you have done if you saw someone struggling in an icy cold lake in January?