The snows have freshly fallen, and the air has grown crisp. One could almost assume that winter has finally struck.
One would be assuming correctly.
So what does winter mean to those of us in the frozen tundra that we so bravely declare our home?
Simply put, we get really cold and stay really cold until the spring, there are days where even the slightest touch of warmth is but a fleeting fantasy. Those days when the cold sinks right into your bones and doesn't let go. The days you feel as though you are freezing from the inside out.
Winter means an abundance of cold and wet, of slush and ice, and an unending burning freeze. Winter means a tenfold increase in danger. Winter brings death along in its wake, and shrouds everything in a perpetual dark.
Winter means putting on twenty pounds of clothing just to walk to the car, let alone to do anything outside.
There's a reason why in all the the old tales Jack Frost is a killer and not a saint. Our ancestors knew that winter brought death.
Nowadays people go out and play in the snow, they revel in the crystalline flakes that descend from the heavens. They slide across the ice with blades of metal strapped to their feet, they traverse down mountains sides upon thin strips of wood, all the while laughing in the face of death.
Nowadays people receive joy at the sight of the first snow fall, where once our ancestors dreaded that fateful day, now people bemoan how long it takes to arrive. People go out and take pictures, dancing in the falling flakes, rapturous joy plastered on their faces!
We are not so afraid of the winter as we once were, perhaps this is good. Perhaps it is not. But it simply is.
Alas, it is winter, and I must settle in for it. The endless months of cold and snow and ice. The promise of the fleeting summer months, all that will keep me sane.
For the snows have freshly fallen, and the air has grown crisp.
One would be assuming correctly.
So what does winter mean to those of us in the frozen tundra that we so bravely declare our home?
Simply put, we get really cold and stay really cold until the spring, there are days where even the slightest touch of warmth is but a fleeting fantasy. Those days when the cold sinks right into your bones and doesn't let go. The days you feel as though you are freezing from the inside out.
Winter means an abundance of cold and wet, of slush and ice, and an unending burning freeze. Winter means a tenfold increase in danger. Winter brings death along in its wake, and shrouds everything in a perpetual dark.
Winter means putting on twenty pounds of clothing just to walk to the car, let alone to do anything outside.
There's a reason why in all the the old tales Jack Frost is a killer and not a saint. Our ancestors knew that winter brought death.
Nowadays people go out and play in the snow, they revel in the crystalline flakes that descend from the heavens. They slide across the ice with blades of metal strapped to their feet, they traverse down mountains sides upon thin strips of wood, all the while laughing in the face of death.
Nowadays people receive joy at the sight of the first snow fall, where once our ancestors dreaded that fateful day, now people bemoan how long it takes to arrive. People go out and take pictures, dancing in the falling flakes, rapturous joy plastered on their faces!
We are not so afraid of the winter as we once were, perhaps this is good. Perhaps it is not. But it simply is.
Alas, it is winter, and I must settle in for it. The endless months of cold and snow and ice. The promise of the fleeting summer months, all that will keep me sane.
For the snows have freshly fallen, and the air has grown crisp.
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