Good Times Along the Creek by John Caverhill
was then tamped in all the spaces, and then another layer of sawdust was spread on top, and the second layer of ice was started. Each layer was completed the same way. Usually, around 200 blocks were stored because the ice box wasn’t needed during the cold winter months. Ice skating was also popular. Just across from Bear Creek School the creek widened out just before the bridge crossing. It was sheltered from the wind, and many enjoyable noon hours were spent skating when conditions were right. One year in the late 1940s, a mid-March thaw accompanied by heavy rain left all the creek lowlands flooded. A sudden extreme cold snap without the usual wind and snow left the whole flooded areas covered with sheets of glassy-smooth clear ice. We were able to skate from west of our farm all the way to present-day Vanneck Drive, a good half mile. It was an exhilarating, once-in-a-lifetime experience which lasted for only one day because the water receded quickly, and the ice sagged and collapsed the following day. Around mid-April, with the ground frost-free and the earthworms active once again and available for bait, Dad, brother Ron and I would head over to the creek for the season’s first fishing. Our gear was not sophisticated. Fish hooks and line were the only purchased items. A six-foot length of trunk cut from an Ironwood sapling made a good pole, flat metal washers were used as weights, and corks became bobbers or floats. The thrill and anticipation of casting was topped only by the electrifying twitch and then the tug of a fish on your line. You heaved on the pole to swing the line over your head to land the fish on the bank behind you. Sunfish, a silvery fish we called “shiners”, and chub made up the catch of the day. We kept only those six inches or longer (chub could easily reach nine or ten inches and were our favourite), but all had fine-flavoured white
Bear Creek, which flowed through the fields across the road from our farm, played a surprisingly large part in our lives when I was growing up. I can just remember the ice box that stood in our pantry until 1946, when it was replaced by our first refrigerator. Each winter, usually around the end of January, next year’s ice supply would be cut from the creek. The main tool was the ice saw, which resembles a crosscut wood saw, except that it has a handle on one end only (guess why only one end), and this handle is crossways rather than vertical, like those on a wood saw. A snow shovel, ice tongs and an axe, along with a box sleigh and a team of horses, completed the ice-cutting inventory. Ideally, the ice should be at least a foot thick, so pools three or four feet deep made the best ice blocks. Any accumulated snow was shovelled off, then the axe was used to chop starting holes, and then the sawing commenced. Once the first row of blocks was cut, no more chopping of entrance holes was needed. The tongs were used to haul the twelve-inch square blocks out of the water. Ice was cut only on extremely cold days. The moment the blocks came out of the water, the wet surfaces froze and then the dry blocks would not freeze together when stacked on the sleigh. Our icehouse was a ten-foot wide by fifteen-foot long and high wooden shed that stood in our orchard, so it was shaded by the trees in the summertime. Sawdust hauled by sleigh from a local sawmill was the insulation. A layer was spread over the floor, then a layer of ice blocks was placed, spaced an inch apart and two inches away from the outside wall. Sawdust
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