Winter?

The cabin is like a sauna.

Outside, it's as if spring has come in January. The beautiful snow we had for the Tahquamenon race has all but melted. It was 42 degrees and raining here today. I was quite down yesterday when the snow began melting for numerous reasons, and not just mushing dogs. It seems like winter is getting harder and harder to come by. Those who depend on winter for their livelihood in places like this are suffering.

I've learned so much these last three months.

I landed a job at a local restaurant/bar waiting tables and tending bar the week before last. But without snow (and snowmobilers) I only worked three days before receiving a text that the owner didn't need the extra help after all.

As I type, rain falls on the tin roof of the cabin. The trails have turned to pure ice. The dogs have been off for four days because of risk of injury when running on the icy trails.

I spent some time during these mild days traveling up to Grand Marais with a couple dogs to watch the sun set over Lake Superior.

Miles (right) and his girlfriend, Cinder

So much depends on the weather, still, for some people and ways of life.

"O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?" William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

It is pouring rain as my headlights part the darkness along county road 407, a small paved road that snakes through miles of Jack Pine forests and connects Newberry to Grand Marais, Michigan in the eastern Upper Peninsula. I am still in shorts and a t-shirt from an unseasonably warm Ohio day when I arrive at the cabin, and I curse myself for my lack of forethought. I've already broken one cardinal rule of the great north woods: always be prepared.

I scramble onto the porch of the cabin in a futile attempt to evade the cold rain. The wooden door squeaks open, and I peer inside, flicking on the light switch but nothing happens. The power has been knocked out by the storm. Along with my warm clothes, my headlamp is also lost somewhere inside the labyrinth of boxes in the back of the Uhaul trailer. Along with the rest of my life. Luckily, I find a smaller headlamp in the console of my truck, strap it to my head and dart back onto the porch.

The small cabin smells like a familiar mix of burning wood and propane. It is only one room, 16x20, and made entirely of giant logs pulled from Hiawatha National Forest. The rain falls steadily on the tin roof, making the darkness feel even more lonely. There is a bed, a small wood stove, a simple table and chair set, a stove and fridge and a tiny bathroom. I sit down on the naked mattress, happy to have arrived after the ten hour drive.

This will be my home for the next five months.

I think of my children who are back in Ohio. What is it that makes a person feel at home in such a remote place? What is it that led me here to this tiny cabin near Lake Superior?

The wind picks up outside as the rain falls more intently on the tin roof. I snuggle up with my small spaniel/lab mix, Gracie, and try to sleep, but I am haunted by the things and people I've left behind and those yet to come.

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?  
O stay and hear! your true-love’s coming  
That can sing both high and low;  
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,  
Journeys end in lovers’ meeting—          
Every wise man’s son doth know.  
  
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;  
Present mirth hath present laughter;  
What’s to come is still unsure:  
In delay there lies no plenty,—          
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,  
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.