Do you know what is the feel of an island? The insulation that creates the feeling of abandonment, as well as security. Being simultaneously a castaway and a householder. Being free from all ties and being tied to a small peace of land. And then, in a cold winter, comes the ice road. The 25 km long road to the mainland. The road over the sea which you are used to sail avoiding every shallow. Now you drive the sea. A couple of months it lasts, and then in March the melting waters cover the ice and turn it back to the sea. It happens once in about five years, that you get your ice road and loose your feel of an island for a while, to come back to your normal state by spring, to the secure and hesitant state of an islander.
