Hi. I lived in Anchorage for 2 years from 2003-05 and the coldest it got was only 18 below. I remember it well and the hoar frost that day and waiting for the bus on Spenard Road to go to the Beer & Barley Wine Festival downtown. My beard was mostly covered with ice at the bus stop.

I don’t mind the cold at all. In fact, in Anchorage, the coldest clear nights usually coincided with excellent aurora borealis viewing.

But the coldest I’ve ever felt in my life was at a Patriots game in Foxboro in December several years ago.

Up in the Dakotas the cold takes on an almost mystical form and it feels like you are in some kind of bubble. It is almost surreal because you don’t think it is as cold as it really is. People in North Dakota are used to cold but every once in a while comes a storm that even the most seasoned Dakotan has to be weary of. One hit me just outside of Fargo. I was playing at an Indian school, and just getting ready to leave when a teacher said to me, “There is a bad storm heading this way are you sure you can make it?” I reassured him that I was used to driving in the snow and I would be fine. He just shook his head and wished me luck. As I rode down this little country highway I saw something unlike anything I ever saw in my life. It was a little white ball of swirling snow. As I drove a little closer I realized that I was driving smack dab into the biggest snowstorm of my life. I tried like mad to turn around and race back to the school but it was no use as the storm was upon me. I then turned around and tried to drive my way through the storm and found out that I was in big trouble. Really Big trouble! The snow was blowing so hard that I could not see the road and the ice was forming so thick on my windshield that the heater was useless. I was trapped. In a few minutes the police came and rescued me. They helped guide my van down the road to a near bye 711 store, where all the motorist were held up. The storm was not letting up and one of the police men said “Well no one is going to make it home tonight.” They asked the stranded drivers where they lived and as most where local folks they drove them home. When it came to me they said “And where are you staying?” I told them that I had a bed in my van. The cops said “If you stay in your van we are going to have pull your dead body out in the morning.” They told that there was a cheap hotel across the street and they were sure the owners would let me spend the night for just a couple of bucks. They also reminded me take your dog in as it’s going to be a real bad night.

With that bit of advice I walked over and booked my room and that night all hell broke loose. The wind howled like a pack of wild hyenas, the ice clawed up the windows and there was this eerie moaning sound that scared poor Koza out of her wits. The storm was so violent that it shook the entire building. In the middle of this great storm I had an idea of what would later become a humors song about life in the mid-west.

FREEZING IN NORTH DAKOTA

Freezing In North Dakota feel
as cold as an ice cream soda,
teeth are rattling like an old pianola,
while the wind blows through my ears.
Not too far from Minnesota,
where a polar bear can catch pneumonia,
and the buffalo dream of Arizona
cause it’s sure gets cold around here
Yo-del -lay ee-aaee oo

driving up and down these country roads
wind chill up to forty five below
can’t see nothing except for snow
as the roads all disappear
car heaters on, but my knees are shaking,
old timers say stop your belly aching
you think this is cold, why you’re mistaken for
you shouldda been here last year.

Chorus;

the land is cold but the people are warm,
Friendliest folks every been born
Tip their hat and blow their horn,
As they go driving by
they fix you some coffee and taken you in,
Then tell you a story to make you grin
of old man winter and of how life’s been
underneath the prairie sky

Chorus;

One of my favorite quotes from Melville’s Moby Dick:

“We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.”

I just stopped listening. Couldn’t take another second of the dude from L.A.

A story from the town history of Brandon, Vermont: back in the 1800s, workers digging in post-glacial gravel found a huge frozen frog, about a foot across. Assuming it was dead, they put it aside. But in the sun’s warmth, it began to twitch, then to hop. After everyone had seen the wonder, it was let loose in the swamps, where for years its huge booming could be heard–calling for a mate that would never come.

While living in McGrath, Alaska in the mid 1980’s we were probably the coldest place on earth – 82 degrees below zero.

2 people kept vehicles running 24 hours a day and they to transport people in emergencies. Fuel was coagulating in underground lines and the governor openned all schools so that people could get to a warm location.

An amazing to live through.

Renee Smith

Hello,

I grew up in Rapid City, SD, and remember many many cold winters, standing at the end of the road, waiting for the bus. On the coldest days there would be an armada of parent’s vehicles shielding their children from the wind.
When I could drive, I remember many freezing whiteouts, and while driving across the plains having my father’s Jeep tossed around in the wind. Now, I live in New Hampshire and miss the real cold…the winters and weather here aren’t so extreme!
Overall, I prefer the winter and the cold. I find it much easier to dress warm, and warm up the house, than to get cool during the summer heat.

Here’s waiting for winter,

Kyle

Listening to the story about the children who froze to death while walking home from school, I am reminded of my grandfather’s fate.

He was an oil tanker captain, in early 1942. After shipping out of Cartagena, Columbia, where it was hot and tropical, his ship was struck by a Nazi torpedo off the coast of Cape Hatteras, on the US Eastern Seaboard.

Although he got all his men off the ship (called the W.L. Steed) into lifeboats, before the U-boat shelled it to the bottom, a fierce blizzard blew up and froze all but two crew members to death.

I read an account, from another ship’s crewman who rescued the one survivor from my grandfather’s lifeboat, which depicted the Captain, sitting upright at the stern of the boat, frozen solid. He died at the helm, as it was, and that lifeboat was set adrift with about 12 bodies of frozen seamen on board.

Chilling….

A postscript to the above story:

The captain of the Nazi U-boat was a man named Winter. No kiddin’…Ironic, eh?

Happened to be listening in the car and am pretty sure I heard one of the speakers refer to Vitus Bering as being Dutch. He was a Dane.

I use to live in Vermont. One winter we had a cold snap that came down from Canada which dropped the temperature down to -20 to -30F. In the morning all the pipes this old house froze. I went outside to my car to see if it would start. The seats were frozen solid and of course the car would not start. That was pretty cold.

Listening again because I missed the first half of the program this morning.

The descriptions given by Bill (thanks!) of the process of freezing give deep comfort to me.

Personally, I’d rather be cold than unremittingly hot.
Seals, Walruses, Polar Bears, Whales, Belugas and Otters are critters I can eminently relate to. Wooly bears, frogs and turtles, too.

Must read this book!

Gracious, poised praise to Tom and Bill for this story.

Another wonderful & interesting show … as usual !!
I’m looking forward to reading Bill Streever’s book and also to building a quinzhee the next time I’m around some snow,
..but please tell us who’s doing that GREAT tune about Antarctica at the end …. are there music credits to be found somewhere ?

Thanks so much !

Yes, name of tune about Antarctica please.

I have slept outside in winter in the Canadian Rockies. It is the edge of my endurance. But it can’t compare to the story of the men on Endurance, Shackleton’s incredible voyage which I just can’t really believe they survived in the conditions they lived in for a year!