Life in Maine

As anyone who has been watching the news is aware, it has been a rather cold January in these parts. For a few weeks, the national media grabbed on to the "cold" story and ran with it, giving us story after story of how us "hearty northerners" were coping under excruciating circumstances. We were cold, and they weren't going to let us or anyone else forget it.

Then it warmed up for a few days. Heck, it even approached 25 one day here in midcoast Maine. And, as quickly as the stories appeared, they vanished. Funny thing is, it quickly turned cold again, but now it seems it is no longer news. Which is disturbing, because without the national media to tell us how much we are suffering, we might not even be aware that we are suffering. And what good is a cold spell if you can't complain about it?

We humans tend to have selective memory and it seems that whenever winter rolls around, that memory doesn't even extend to the previous winter. "I don't ever remember a winter this cold," we tell each other. Truth is, I don't remember a lot of things, so I wouldn't be surprised if I've experienced much colder winters before in my life. But I can remember the month of January and I can assure you that it has been cold.

How cold? My only reference is the analog thermometer that sits outside our kitchen window. I wouldn't say the readings it provides are "official," but it's what I've got to go by and my body tells me that what it says can't be too far off. The coldest temperatures are typically seen when we first wake up in the morning, and the coldest reading we've gotten this winter is -19. Sure, those in Vermont who registered -27 can scoff at us, but I doubt that the human body can detect much of a difference between -19 and -27. Once you reach a certain point, cold is cold.

But it's not a super-low temperature that has been the story of this January. After all, it has been a lot colder than -19 since records have been kept (I think I remember reading that the lowest temperature recorded in Maine was -44). What has been extraordinary is the length and frequency of the cold snaps. For instance, during the first cold snap, the high temperature for the day did not reach 0 for four straight days. During a couple of those days, the high temperature was -8. A week later, the same thing - four straight days where we didn't break zero. This week, it's been a little more forgiving, with highs in the single digits, but the nightly lows are still in the -10 to -15 range.

So, how are we coping in these extremes? Well, just about all of us live in houses. And the houses all have central heating of one sort or another. So, yes, it is cold outside, but for the most part we are inside. So, believe it or not, we are surviving.

Occasionally, however, we do have to go outside. For those of us with dogs, "occasionally" means several times a day. For those of us with dogs with thick fur who haven't got a clue or a care how cold it is, those outside jaunts often last an hour or more. So, I can speak from experience when I say that the way to cope with living at 15 below is to JUST KEEP MOVING.

Sure, it helps to bundle up before you go outside. You'd be foolish (and/or not long for this world) if you didn't. But bundling up alone isn't going to cut it. When it's 15 below and the wind is blowing, you are going to get cold no matter how you are dressed. And if you're standing still, soon your extremities will start to go numb. First it's the fingers. Then the toes. And once you get to this point, there is little you can do to warm up other then getting yourself into a heated enclosure somewhere.

If, however, you don't allow yourself to get to that point, you can get around in extremely cold weather just fine. I went to a lecture once where the presenter was describing his journey through Canada on x-country skis. He said that on many days, the temperature never got above -25, yet they were skiing in t-shirts. The key, of course, is that they kept moving.

Sometimes the dogs keep us moving, other times they don't. I've had to chase them through the woods to try to catch them as they were chasing after whatever it was that caught there attention. In these situations, I can assure you I was not cold. I was too busy getting knocked in the head with tree branches and falling over rocks and tree limbs to even think about being cold. Other times, the dogs are content to lay down and chew on ice chunks for ungodly amounts of time. In these instances, I can assure you I am cold.

Aside from the hardships of living with the cold, there are a few benefits that come to mind as well. Primary among these are the visual benefits. Cold brings newfound beauty to the natural world. The sea smoke rising from the ocean in drifts and swirls. The ice-encrusted rocks and boulders at the shore. The frozen rivers and waterfalls.

The lingering cold has produced a phenomenon that I have not previously experienced since I've been in Maine. Living on sloping land, there are streams and brooks and culverts scattered about which channel the groundwater as it makes its way towards the ocean. With the cold, the groundwaters have progressively frozen and built up large flows of ice. These frozen "glaciers" are now reaching out over the banks of the brooks and culverts and are "swallowing" everything in their paths - tree trunks, part of my driveway, portions of roadways. If this keeps up, I think that soon our primary mode of transportation will be ice skates.

Life at 15 Below