A Winter’s Tale, Such As It Is

I’m having some serious cabin fever. It’s of a strange variety, given that my “Dear God I am going to crawl out of my skin and run shrieking down the street” mentality is not necessarily based on feeling penned in by the elements, at least not in the traditional sense. Would that it were so–I would welcome being snowed in, the drifts piling up, a cozy fire (we don’t actually have a fireplace, but never mind! This is all very hypothetical at this point anyway).

It has been unseasonably warm and quite dry here in the northwoods. This has led to a lack of snowfall that has left our entire region looking crusty and brown and positively disgusting, with little scabby patches of filthy snow-ice scattered about. It’s actually making me angry. Irritable and increasingly desperate for a winter storm warning, I watch the weather radar like it’s starring Timothy Olyphant.

I was hoping this would be the winter I would master cross-country skiing, or at least develop enough skill that I could ski without feeling that I was the unwitting star in some slapstick comedy routine with “Yakety Sax” playing in the background. K and I bought ourselves beautiful new snowshoes as our Christmas presents, and we’ve been able to use them once. I want some snow.

Every year I hear people bitching up a storm when the first snow falls. I always want to ask them, why exactly are you living in northern Wisconsin? You know you’re not legally required to stay, right? Snow is pretty, there are lots of fun things to do with and in it, and if enough of it comes at once, it can get you out of work. What’s not to appreciate about that?

The thing is, it’s going to be too cold to do anything that isn’t designed for winter anyway–40 degrees is not going to allow for a nice relaxing day at the beach. So we might as well have the snow that allows for winter fun, and take a 20 degree cut in temperature. Stop bellyaching, you’ll be plenty warm once you get moving. Otherwise, it’s like 3-4 months of March, ugly and wet and chilly, and who wants that? Crazy people who are living in the wrong part of the country, that’s who.

In all seriousness, I can’t help but wonder if part of my extreme agitation with this situation is the fact that it is almost mirroring the winter we had last year. The ice never froze up between Bayfield and the island and the ferry ran all winter for the second time in its history. Two times fourteen years apart is one thing, but the channel is completely open this year as well, and two years in a row is… something else. It’s disturbing. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit activist in environmental justice, refers to “the right to be cold.” It might not be comfortable, but it’s necessary to maintain everything else that makes this place special. We need the typical cold, snowy northern Wisconsin winter, or we lose it all. There is a wider perspective at stake here.

So I’ll keep watching the radar, hoping for a snow to arrive on my doorstep. Or Timothy Olyphant. That would make the cabin fever a little more bearable.