I was looking out my window of my lakeshore home on the morning of Friday, January 28, 1977. Through field glasses, I watched a flock of greater Canada geese feeding on the corn that I had spread for them on the frozen surface of Lake Erie, just a stone throw away. Suddenly the geese all collapsed on their breasts onto the ice facing into the breeze. They then pulled their feet up into their breast feathers. Twisting their necks backwards, they then tucked their bills and heads into their back feathers.

I looked out onto the frozen lake. I saw a wall of white as high as a mountain flowing across the ice toward the geese and my home. That wall of snow hit my house with hurricane force and almost shattered the bay windows. The blizzard of the century had arrived.

On the fourth and final day of the storm, I tucked my camera inside my parka and waited for a clearing in the blowing snow. I then crawled across the snow toward the geese.

Figure 1

Canada geese survived the four day blizzard on Lake Erie ice.

Photo by Erno Rossi.

Later on that fourth day, during another clearing in the storm, those same geese all stood up, strutted about, flapped their wings and then took flight toward the open water of the Niagara River. The blizzard of the millennium had ended.

Figure 2

Blizzard frostbite.

About The Author

Erno Rossi is a freelance writer-photographer, world traveler, outdoor columnist, best-selling author and former teacher of history, sociology and disaster survival.

Figure 3

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