It’s summer and I’m already thinking of winter and a possible trip to the Northern hemisphere. Perhaps this is hangover from my hiking trip last year to the European alps which left indelible memories of snow-covered mountains and the sound of boots treading across thick snow.
There is something about the snow experience that leaves one at once calmer and feeling more light-weighted in the mind. So it is with great pleasure that I read a passage about “ice songs” from Linda Akeson McGurk’s charming book, The Open-air Life (2022) which I definitely want to experience myself.
What is ice singing? Here’s the passage from McGurk’s book (reproduced with minor edits) explaining what it is and why it will excite nature lovers.
Excerpts from The Open-air Life by Linda Akeson McGurk
If you spend enough time near a frozen lake, especially around the time when it begins to freeze or thaw, chances are you will hear a haunting, cosmic pow wow sound intermittently breaking through the silence. There is nothing sinister about this sound. Rather it is the soothing sound of tensions in the ice as it contracts or expands. In Nordic countries, this is called “ice singing” and is enjoyed on a seasonal basis not only by wild skaters but also people who find the sound relaxing and comforting.
Jonna Jinton is a Swedish blogger and photographer who left behind a busy city life in Gothenburg to live in a village of ten people in Sweden’s arctic north. Every year, she spends hours on the ice, often on the coldest nights, losing herself to the primal landscape and the sound of ice singing emanating from the depths below her feet. She describes it as a powerful, almost other-worldly experience, as if an ancient creature has woken up from its sleep and is howling in the night. “Sometimes when the ice is calmer, you can put your head against the ice and listen. Then it sounds just like you’re lying in Mother Earth’s womb.” She says.
A few years ago, Jinton started to bring recording devices to capture the sounds so that she could bring them home and listen to them anytime. She was having trouble going to sleep at night at the time and figured that the soothing sounds of the ice might help. It did. The mysterious tunes of the ice cracking helped her breathe deeper and go to sleep earlier. When she posted the recording, a one-hour symphony of ice songs on Youtube, it struck a cord with her followers, and the comment field quickly filled up. A woman who was struggling with mood swings and mental health said listening to the sounds made her feel grounded and calm. A fellow insomniac professed to being helped and filled with a sense of well-being. Another follower described the sounds as a bridge to something beyond this world, like eavesdropping on the spirits of the ancestors telling their stories. Even people who lived in tropical climates and had never seen an ice landscape, let alone heard it, attested to the healing power of ice songs. When Jinton posted her second ice video, it got over eight million views. Clearly, the haunting ice songs she recorded was able to reach deep within the souls of many people, evoking a universal feeling of something greater than ourselves.
The Serenity of Snow
For a completely different sound experience in the winter landscape, try going outside when it snows. If the world seems a bit quieter than normal, there’s a scientific reason for that. Because water makes haunting sounds when it freezes, it does the opposite in snow form. Snow is porous and absorbs sound and it does it well. The ice crystals in snowflakes, which usually takes the form of a six-sided branch, capture sound waves on their way to the ground.
New snow are fluffy balls of needles and air, and on really cold days, it typically makes a creaking sound when you walk on it. That would be the sound of the ice needles breaking and the air being let out. The snow loses its sound absorbing qualities when it becomes wet or dirty so the best way to get a serene snow experience is to head out when the snow is still fresh.