freelance writer
travel ° environment ° science ° outdoors ° adventure
|
Winter Freaks
cover Minnesota Trails winter 2006 Last Sunday, I went to the kitchen to get a cookie and found my roommate Britta leaning against the counter, a glass of Jameson in her left hand, a Gedney Dill Mini Muncher in her right. She smacked her lips. “Mmm. Pickles and whiskey.” “Excuse me?” “I like pickles,” she said patiently, “and I like whiskey. It’s like beer and peanuts.” It’s often said of unusual people that they “dance to the beat of a different drummer.” If so, then Britta dances to the bleat of a kazoo. I’m a freak freak, attracted to, and fascinated by, the quirky, the strange, the stigmatized, the disturbed and the obsessed. What makes them freaks, exactly? Why does society glance askance at them? What terrors and secret desires do they represent? Part of my fascination, I’ll admit, is narcissism. My friends summit mountains and kayak down staircases (Don’t ask). My boyfriend surfs Lake Superior in January. I axe my way up frozen waterfalls. Once I licked a slug on a dare. But sometimes I still forget why most people regard outdoor enthusiasts as freaks. Two weeks ago, during an overnight winter camping trip at Boulder Lake, Minnesota, I got three reminders. The first reminder was the dead fox draped over my friend John’s head. It peered sightlessly from its perch atop his pate, its legs dangling around his ears. “My brother made this hat for me,” John said proudly. “He brain-tanned the hide. Brain-tanning is how Native Americans used to cure hides. You mash the brains of the animal with water to make a paste that you rub into the drying hide.” John’s hat was warm, and made with skill and love. He was justly proud of it. But it’s easy to see how some people would look at him and think, “Gee, a man with a dead animal on his head tramping around in three-foot-deep snow in the middle of winter. What a nut.” The second reminder came later that day. Under a sun whose watery light held no warmth, I dug myself a grave. Well, it looked like a grave. It was a snow coffin, a body-sized hole you dig in the snow and sleep in. The ground insulates you and the walls block the wind. After dark, when I got tired, I tucked a tarp into the coffin, tossed my sleeping bag on it, and crawled in. Then I wrapped the tarp around myself burrito-style to trap warmth and keep out the snow. If my family only knew where I’m sleeping, I thought as I drifted into la-la land. They would think I’m crazy. The third reminder came at 5:52 a.m., when I woke to pitch darkness and cold, weighted plastic pressing my face. My breath billowed around me like smoke. After a brief moment of panic, during which I got snow down my back and then yelped like a kicked puppy, I realized that it had snowed during the night. Several inches had accumulated on the tarp – hence the cold and the weight. I tried to go back to sleep, but I was shivering. So I rooted around in my very crowded sleeping, pushing aside a camera, socks, toothpaste, boot liners, two water bottles, and everything else I didn’t want to freeze overnight, until I found the Milky Way Midnight bar I had stashed. Sugar would give me energy so my body could keep warm. Then I could sleep. As I chewed the gooey concoction, I had to concede that this situation was absurd. Maybe there was some truth to the belief that winter campers and other outdoor extremists have their heads screwed on sideways. I settled back into bed, the rich taste of dark chocolate lingering in my mouth, and decided that I didn’t care if my head was on sideways. I liked the view. Many people would hear this story and conclude that we outdoorsy folks are masochistic maniacs. Houses were invented, they would say, so people don’t have to sleep outside in the winter. They would add that the words “lick” and “slug” don’t belong in the same story, much less the same sentence. They’d be right about the slug thing. |
What my clients say "Shelby is a versatile and highly dependable author who speaks the language of adventure fluently and writes it even better."  Patrick Kinsella Editor-in-chief Outer Edge (Australia) "When it comes to adventure writing, Shelby is the real thing. She's passionate about her craft ... follows instructions and gets her stories done on time. Best of all, she can turn a phrase."  Shawn Perich Publisher/outdoor writer Northern Wilds (U.S.) |