Preparing for winter 2

Preparing for Winter: Getting Around

Boots were important. There had to be warmth as well as good traction. Bunny boots were common—these are large white boots that many people wore. People said their feet got yucky in them, so I never bought those. We had Sorrels for a while and they were good for warmth, but they were so heavy that walking in them caused pain. Lobbens were great—wool felt boots made in Norway. I also had some handmade mukluks with wool liners that I loved. These laced up the legs, so were good for certain conditions. The Lobbens ended at ankle height, although sometimes taller ones were available. Sometimes though, people opted for fashion over common sense. I used to see one professor every day in her fur coat, pantyhose, and pumps trying to gingerly make her way across the icy road to her car. I never saw her fall, but she came close at times, sliding and flailing her arms around to get her balance. 

Some people did not have vehicles and used their bicycles for transport throughout the winter. They got fatter tires and tire chains and off they went. There was a network of cross-country ski trails in the area we lived and people used that for skiing and skijoring (dog harnessed to a person on skis). People used snow machines, sometimes on the trails, which they were not supposed to do. 

Once things were frozen solid enough, people used lakes and rivers as roads and walkways. There were a couple of times that Bill had to walk across a lake to an elder’s home for work and I worried until I heard from him that he was back at the university and had not fallen through the ice! Every spring there would come a day when the front page of the newspaper contained a large photo of the first person to try to drive across the river, only to find that the ice was no longer thick enough to carry the weight, so in they went! 

The end of winter into spring could be tricky, because there was a lot of melting going on but also a lot of snow and ice still left. Walking through puddles required attention, because there was usually ice underneath. The surface temperatures would be warm enough to melt the ice and snow, but the ground was still frozen, so that top layer of meltwater had nowhere to go. It sat there, a welcoming breeding ground for the mosquitoes that some joked were the state bird. There was a lot of mud and tires tended to spin when one was trying to drive through it. It felt pretty warm by then, but it could still be dangerously cold if people felt a false sense of security. At one point, I read that more people die of hypothermia during this time of year than in the extreme cold of winter. When it’s extremely cold, people dress for it. After the period of extreme cold, even temperatures in the single digits Fahrenheit feel warm, so people sometimes go outside without the proper clothing and, particularly if alcohol is involved, might sit somewhere and succumb to the cold.

We were not sure what it would be like to experience such a winter when we got there, but by the time we’d been there a year, we knew that it’s just something you get used to. By the last winter we were there, we were used to it, but also feeling a bit tired of the work and preparation required.