December 4th. Not a breath. Minus thirty-two degrees. The ice groans like a huge
wounded animal all through the day. Now that the ice is thicker the sound seems in a
different pitch.
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Nine-fifteen when Spike’s Peak across the lake caught the first rays of the sun.
At minus thirty degrees the moose meat saws like wood. Some prime meat dust for the
chickadees, who are puffed up like little gray balloons today and sitting low in the
branches to protect those spindly legs. The camp robbers arrived. They looked like
giants with their inflated feathers.
While coming back from a trip to the lower end, I saw a movement on the beach, a
trotting and a stopping and a trotting again. It was a red fox. He came closer. In this very
cold and half-dead world he had smelled the moose meat. How handsome he was in his
thick orange coat, black boots, white chest piece, and a white tip on the fat banner of his
tail. He came still closer. At fifty feet he started to circle me and not until he crossed my
tracks did he get alarmed. Then off he flashed over the ice, his tail flopping this way and
that. Abruptly he stopped. He sat on his haunches and studied me.
I put a big chunk of moose meat out on the ice in front of the cabin. Maybe he will come
to call by moonlight.
It’s very warm in my cabin. At three in the afternoon the shadows are near and the tops
of the mountains across the lake.
I found it not bad traveling today. The wind is the villain when the thermometer is low.
Nature’s invisible knife.
December 5th. A full moon sharply focused in the very clear air. Minus thirty-two degrees.
The ice is now twelve inches thick.
Today I would experiment with the cold. Hands and feet are the weaknesses in my
protective armor. I cut a pair of insoles from the caribou hide. I was sure they would be
very effective, but they are too thick with the hair on and make my pacs fit too tight. A
thermal insole, a cardboard insole, a thick felt insole, two pairs of woolen socks, one of
heavy worsted wood and the other of medium weight, with woolen boot socks seems to
be a good combination. A loose fit helps, too. I tried paper between two pairs of socks. It
seemed better for a time, then colder. For my hands nothing beats the little “Jon-e” hand
warmer fueled with Blazo. Two pairs of woolen mittens with this little hand warmer
traded back and forth is surefire protection. I tried paper between two pairs of mittens.
That helps, but nothing like the little stove. The Glacier Creek ram skin tube is great
protection but a man can’t cut wood with his hands shoved into a muff. During these
experiments I was working in the woodshed, so I was handy for a quick change of gear.