The Deepest Blue

Our northern winters are long and can provide tough conditions. You will need a snow shovel, and where I live, you can expect a stretch of sub-zero temperatures at some point. But winter also has a handsome face. There is nothing that equals an entire landscape softened and whitewashed by several inches of freshly fallen snow.

As sunset approached yesterday, I walked along the lakeshore below my house. The lake lay dark and yet unfrozen, while the sky above displayed the deepest blue imaginable. All of this was highlighted by a layer of freshly fallen snow on the land and on the docks extending out into the dusky water.

Gorgeous. No other word.

—Mitchell Hegman