Ice Bound
Beginning in April, the annual thaw made its way across the empire, breaking up ice, causing water levels to rise, and allowing shipments of logs to travel relatively quickly through October.
Between May and October, both rivers and shipyards were hives of activity.
By mid-September, merchants were casting worried eyes to the skies, looking for the first signs of winter.
When the cold weather returned and the rivers began to freeze, the transport of oak trees came to a halt. Logs remained where they were, marooned on river banks and forest floors.
As ice closed in, barge haulers and pilots abandoned the riversides. Between October and April frozen rivers became thoroughfares for sledge travel, but heavy and cumbersome loads of logs rested on the banks and at the edges of the forests where they had reached maturity. Shipwrights contented themselves with the timber already in their yards: there would be no new shipments until the thaw.