Trust, Continued

Walking on ice and snow in the middle of the Cootes Paradise Marsh yesterday, continuing to contemplate trust

Bright sun on ice, Cootes, January 24, 2026, by me on my BlackBerry phone

Yesterday my husband determined that for the daily walk, we would go out into the middle of the Cootes Paradise Marsh. He had never walked out there. It had been extremely cold for several days and it seemed logical that the ice would be thick and safe to walk on.

I thought at first he was joking. Then I thought that the fact that I had misplaced my boots would be reason enough to do one of our usual walks. He lent me a pair of his boots and as he laced them onto my feet, I realized this was happening. I was apprehensive and stressed.

The day was sunny, bright, gorgeous. We arrived at the parking for Princess Point which was quite full as many people seemed to have had the same idea as my husband. Though most were out there skating, some like us were going out for a walk on the ice and snow of the marsh. I began to relax as I saw how many footprints were ahead of us in our chosen direction. We or more accurately he had decided to walk to and around the island I have so often observed from my favourite Cootes lookout in the warm months, as I watched the herons, swans and egrets that love to frequent that island close to Princess Point.

I was still nervous as we walked arm in arm farther and farther out onto the ice, in spite of the reassuring sign we had read before we stepped off of the shore that the ice was at least 4 inches thick and it was safe to walk or skate on.

Approaching the island

It certainly felt odd to see the familiar lookouts and shorelines of the Princess Point and Desjardins trails from out on the frozen marsh. I was fascinated as we walked around the small island and looked out at the winter expanse.

So. Much. Ice.

My husband, of course, as we walked made frequent jokes about things like what to do if we went through the ice, and gleefully pointed out all the long cracks in the ice where it had contracted during a cold snap. I still managed to relax more and more as we continued to walk safely and people were walking, skating, and laughing everywhere in the distance, seemingly in every direction from where we were.

This was apparently a very normal activity in Hamilton in winter, though neither of us had ever tried it here. I thought how lovely it would be to do it on cross-country skis, as clearly at least a couple of people already had recently.

Feeling Unsafe. Feeling Safe.

The experience provided a lot of food for contemplation on the circumstances that make me feel unsafe or safe. There were many practical reasons to feel perfectly safe. The cold. The shallow waters of the marsh. The sign. All the people walking and skating happily. My husband’s statistics about Lake Erie being 70 percent frozen, etc.

And yet in spite of all that, there was a part of my mind that kept screaming faintly beneath all this, “There is water underneath all this ice! I’m going to fall through the ice and freeze to death!”

It got fainter as the walk continued and was silent by the time we had stepped back onto the shore. But it never totally went away while we were on the ice, and it got louder at times, when I would hear the crackling of the ice, or see a particularly wide crack.

Perhaps part of trust is familiarity. If I walked on the ice in the cold of winter every week or two, I would probably feel a lot more relaxed, with every experience of not horribly dying in cold water.

But there are other factors. Children and young people often feel invincible, immortal as they engage in risky activities and sports older people wouldn’t dare try. We gain a stronger belief in the possibility of dying as we age, and gradually accumulate a larger number of stories of ways people die or are maimed.

The Bigger Questions

In the post yesterday, I asked where I put my trust. This got me thinking more about that. Do I really trust the ones I love most, or do I only appear to trust them because life usually goes smoothly in predictable patterns? What does my level of apprehension in an apparently safe and secure situation like walking on ice reveal about my real level of trust?

How truly do I believe that I am always held?