Temperature is definitely 'snappy' today

Cork and I walk our snowshoe trails daily

Webbing on these 'shoes needed revarnishing

At dawn today the thermometer registered -27 C or -16 F. That is the record so far this winter in Nolalu. It was far colder in Red Lake. I heard on the radio that it was only -36 C there. Those temperatures do not take into account the wind chill. I could certainly feel the wind as I walked down the road to the mail box. At these temperatures even the slightest breeze makes you turn your head away.

(Update: Temperature Sunday was -34 C which happens to be 30 below F)

I had big plans about raising the final beam on my wood shed today but came to the conclusion that a better idea was to sit in the sunroom where a combination of the sun and the wood stove made it feel like a tropical beach. So I read a book the whole afternoon.
Cork and I have now packed down the snow on all of our bush trails. It was tough going with snowshoes the first time around. The snowshoes plunge about half way down through the two feet of the white stuff. I noticed that I have worn off all the varnish on my snowshoes so I brought them into the house for a few coats. In the meantime I borrowed Brenda's which are of a modern design and have a solid nylon material under the foot. I broke some new trail with them just to see if they held me further aloft but no such luck.
It is important to varnish the rawhide lacing on snowshoes from time to time to waterproof them. If the temperature ever gets above freezing the untreated rawhide will stretch and make walking absolutely miserable.
There are no signs of any canines in the bush now, not foxes, wolves or coyotes. I'm a little worried that something drastic has happened to the whole lot, like disease. On the other hand it could be these animals are hampered by the deep snow now and aren't moving.
Every time I snowshoe on a trail that I have made I think back to when I was a kid. I loved to make trails in the bush around our house at Red Lake. Perched three feet above the ground in the deep snow I could fly over the windfalls that make summer walking difficult.
One time my friends Dennis and Brian Larson and I found a deep drift at the edge of the lake and beside a small game trail. We thought it a great spot to make a fort and spent hours chopping out blocks of snow and piling them around the hole we had dug using our snowshoes as shovels.
We were exhausted and sat with our backs against one side of the "igloo" that had no top. Uncharacteristically we were silent, probably because we were too tired to speak for the moment and it just felt good to soak up the sun's rays down in the hole where there was no wind.
Just then a dog came walking along the game trail which was on top of the snow and about three feet higher than our heads. It was only about six feet from where I sat. The dog never saw us and walked down to the lake where it followed the little trail to the other side of the bay and walked into the bush.
As it disappeared all three of us realized at once, "That was a wolf!"

Wood shed site now buried in snow