Well, the old proverb, "You never know what the weather is going to be like in Montana!" has been right on this year. It has lived up to the saying by being low negatives one week and 60-70 degrees the next week. This kind of change has substantial effects on the river.
When it is in the low 30s, you start to see ice form on the river. It begins to flow down from the smaller tributaries like the Teton and Marias. Then after a week of 20-degree temperatures, the river has so much ice it is in sheets and is slumbering on downstream. It reflects an icy silver-gray color. When you are admiring it, you get the chills just thinking about how cold it would be to be in it. Then when the temperatures get to the negatives. It is moving sluggishly for a day or two, and then you wake up in the morning and find it has stopped moving altogether. You know if it went to sleep peacefully by the ice chunks and how high they pile up. This year it was a gentle force that froze the top of the river, sealing it for crossing during the winter.
In the past, the ferry had a hand cart, neighbors on the south side could travel across during the winter. They would have someone park a car on the north side and take the hand cart over the ferry cable to do business, get their mail, or shopping at the store in Virgelle.
The remembrance of the cable cart reminds me of being woke up during the night by pounding on the door. My dad opened it, and there was a neighbor from across the way holding is hand by the looks of his face you could see he was in excruciating pain. He showed my dad his hand, and it had several fingers all messed up on it. When he was going home on the hand cart, the big pulleys holding the cart up ran over his fingers. My dad invited him in and inspected his fingers. During his inspection, he had mom get a long sharp needle and place it over the burner of the stove, holding it with a pair of pliers. As a very young girl, I am sure my eyes were as large as saucers when I saw that glowing red needle handed over to my dad. The neighbor's finger was swelling up into big sausages and turning black. The blood was pooling in the tip under the fingernail. My dad took the red hot needle and pushed it under the nail to release the pressure. I am sure it still had to hurt fiercely, but the Terry man said it felt so much better after the pressure was relieved.
When the river froze over for a few days, the neighbor ( Ray Stevens and his hired man Levi) would take a small tractor across to see if the river was safe to drive over. Ray would tie a rope around his waist with a long bar in his hand. Levi sat on the tractor with the end of Ray's rope fastened to it. Ray walked out onto the ice, jab it with his rod stepping out carefully. He did this until he came to the end of the rope. Then Levi would drive the tractor out on the ice. This process would keep going until they made it all the way across. The river became a road from that day until the warm weather came. The main house on the Terry/Alderdice Ranch was brought over the ice and place as the ranch headquarters. It was amazing how much the locals on the south side of the river used it all year round.
When the weather takes a turn to the warmer temperatures again, and the snow starts melting, the river usually does not open up right away. It usually starts to melt the ice chunks the are sticking up like thorns. Then it becomes much smoother easier to access. Not me! I am terrified of it. I have seen too many chances open up in random spots on the ice field to feel safe. Must be something with age and wisdom, and maybe not a necessity, because as a young girl, I can remember taking our snowmobiles out on the ice hunting coyotes upstream.
When the snow melts, it heads for the river. You usually do not see this flux in the water; you hear it in the movement of the ice. As I am walking upriver, I hear the cracking and popping, not quite as active as an air popper, but more to the end when you are listening for that last kernel to pop. If you are watching the ice as I do when I go for my daily walk to just being outside, you will start to see fissures start near the edge. These are what is popping with the rise of water. This year the runoff causes the ice to rise two to three feet. After a week or so of this and the temperatures are on the rise, the ice starts moving. I first saw lines going all the way across the river in the ice. The popping and cracking sounded more like a popcorn popper. As usual, the river never broke open during the day (once in a while, you might get to see this phenomenal event). I woke up at 12:15 P.M. with the sound of a freight train rushing by the house. At first, I sat in bed and asked myself, "What is that?" My brain recalled the sound of other times, I witnessed the river going out. It had been warm for several days, and the day the ice went out, it had reached a temperate 60 degrees. The ice was flat and changing colors to the silver-gray, so I knew it wouldn't be long before it broke open with the force of all the runoff and warm temperatures it went out gentle. The middle opened up, and the ice calved off from the banks. The ice sheets remaining on the banks are only eight to ten inches thick.
