They're wrong.
The strangest thing is that, on certain nights in January, when the temperature drops below -40°C and the air is so cold it crackles, the South Saskatchewan River makes sounds that don't belong to ice.
I learned that the hard way.
It started after my night shift at the university. The city was buried under fresh snow, and the streets were nearly empty. The traffic lights changed for no one. My car wouldn't start, so I decided to walk across the University Bridge. It wasn't far, and I'd crossed it hundreds of times.
Halfway across, I heard footsteps.
Not behind me.
Beneath me.
They echoed through the steel framework of the bridge as though someone was walking on the frozen river itself.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
I leaned over the railing.
Nothing.
Only a white sheet of snow covering the ice.
The footsteps stopped.
Then, from directly below me, a man's voice whispered, "Wait."
I nearly jumped over the railing.
There wasn't anyone there.
I hurried the rest of the way home, convincing myself the bridge had simply carried the sound from somewhere else.
The next morning, the news reported that nobody had been on the river that night. It was too dangerous. Large sections of ice were unstable because of the current beneath.
I forgot about it.
Until three nights later.
This time I heard knocking.
Three slow knocks.
From my apartment window.
I lived on the twelfth floor.
When I pulled back the curtain, frost covered the outside of the glass.
Someone had written a message with a finger.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.
The letters melted away before I could grab my phone.
That's when I began noticing them.
People standing by the river.
Always alone.
Always facing the water.
Never moving.
I'd drive by at six in the morning and see one.
At midnight, another.
During a blizzard, three at once.
Nobody else seemed to notice them.
One afternoon I finally approached an older man standing near the riverbank.
"Cold day," I said.
He didn't answer.
He simply pointed toward the frozen river.
There, beneath the ice, I saw dozens of dark shapes.
They weren't fish.
They looked like people.
Standing upright.
Looking back.
I blinked.
The river became empty again.
When I turned back, the old man was gone.
After that, sleep became impossible.
Every night the knocking returned.
Three knocks.
Every night.
Sometimes from the walls.
Sometimes from underneath my bed.
Sometimes from inside my apartment door.
Always three.
One morning, exhausted, I searched old newspaper archives.
Buried in an article from 1915 was a short paragraph about bridge workers disappearing during construction. The official report blamed thin ice.
But one sentence had been crossed out by hand.
"The missing men continued working beneath the river."
That made no sense.
Until the next snowfall.
Fresh snow covered the river overnight.
By sunrise, thousands of footprints stretched across the ice.
Every set began in the middle of the river.
Every one led toward the city.
None returned.
The police assumed pranksters.
Meteorologists blamed drifting snow.
No explanation ever fit.
That evening, emergency services received hundreds of calls from every neighbourhood in Saskatoon.
People reported hearing knocking inside their walls.
Three knocks.
Always three.
The city never released what officers found.
But several sections of the riverbank were fenced off for weeks afterward.
No construction.
No explanation.
Just fences.
I left Saskatoon that spring.
Moved nearly two thousand kilometres away.
The knocking stopped.
For years.
Until yesterday.
A courier delivered a package with no return address.
Inside was a glass jar filled with river ice that somehow hadn't melted.
Suspended inside was a folded note.
I unfolded it.
It contained only one sentence.
"The bridge is finished. Come see what we built."
I checked the tracking label.
It hadn't been mailed.
Under "Origin" was printed:
South Saskatchewan River, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
I threw the jar into the fireplace.
The ice didn't melt.
Last night, I woke to three slow knocks.
Not at my door.
From underneath the floorboards.
They're getting louder.
And between the knocks...
I can hear footsteps.
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