Thoreau in
Winter
W BY RICHARD SMITH
Winters in New England can be harsh and unforgiving with days, or even weeks, of below-freezing temperatures and with snowfalls that are often measured in feet. It’s a season when all but the heartiest of New Englanders hunker down, put on a few extra layers of flannel, crank the thermostat, and stay cozy and warm at home. One Concordian who enjoyed the winter, though, was Henry David Thoreau. He would happily go on his daily walk “in all seasons” and a wintery landscape held just as much promise for an exciting excursion as did the fields and forests in July. In fact, one of the first essays that Thoreau published was called A Winter Walk, which first appeared in the October 1843 issue of The Dial. From the very beginning of the piece, Thoreau graphically and romantically describes a walk around 54
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a snow-covered Concord on a bitterly cold morning. You can almost smell the woodsmoke and feel the cold biting at your nose as Thoreau traverses the winter landscape. “The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impressive. The floor creaks under our feet as we move toward the window to look abroad through some clear space over the fields. We see the roofs stand under their snow burden. From the eaves and fences hang stalactites of snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites covering some concealed core. The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on every side; and where were walls and fences, we see
fantastic forms stretching in frolic gambols across the dusky landscape, as if Nature had strewn her fresh designs over the fields by night as models for man’s art.” Thoreau would continue to record his love of winter eleven years later with the publication of Walden. Of the eighteen chapters that make up the book, four of them specifically deal with the winter months, from “House Warming” (where he chronicles the building of his chimney) to “Winter Visitors” and “Winter Animals” to finally “The Pond in Winter.” In that last chapter, Thoreau describes the daily activities around, and on top of, a frozen Walden Pond; ice fishing by locals, ice cutting by gangs of Irish laborers, and Thoreau’s daily battle with axe and pail to obtain water, are all described in great detail, as is the ice of the Pond itself.
