[at-l] 27*? Cold is a state of mind.

[lorac4491 at linkamerica.net (Coosa)]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/05/cold_comfort_in_the_wild?mode=PF

Cold comfort in the wild
By Derrick Z. Jackson, 3/5/2004

FROZEN GIZZARD, Maine
THAT WAS a more appropriate name than Pine Stream on this morning when Garrett Conover cheerfully put his head into our tent, precisely at the moment his wife, Alexandra, cheerfully poured aromatic cups of coffee. "Good morning, everyone!" Garrett said. "It's beautiful out! It's 27 below!"

If Conover had said this on the first morning of our journey into the deep north woods of Maine, I would have said, "I'm outta here!" If he said that on the second morning, I would have muttered, "What am I doing here?!?!?" By the third day I had ascended to a Zen state. This morning was what confronted Native Americans in winter for thousands of years, the first Europeans who came here, and African-Americans who escaped slavery on the Underground Railroad, especially those who fled as far north as Nova Scotia.

I thought of that and this semi-privation became more privilege than pain. Once I was convinced it was 27 below, I went outside, looked at the glistening ice of a frozen river, the stoic pillars of pine and balsam, and took in deep breaths of the windless silence.

I came back to the tent and declared, "It ain't cold! It's all in your mind!" The five people in the tent erupted in laughter. That quote was borrowed from a Green Bay Packer football player just before a championship game that was played at a mere 3 degrees. The Packers won the big game, and I scored a small victory in understanding how generations won the game of life.

I was here with my wife, Michelle Holmes, one of my sons, Tano, and several friends because Michelle had long wanted to take a trip with the Conovers. For the last quarter century, the wiry, lumberjack-strong, middle-aged couple have led adventures into the winter wilderness that recreate the ways of the Indian past. In a lake-filled region just to the west of Baxter State Park, we strapped our gear onto individual toboggans and hauled them along Pine Stream, walking on snowshoes and in mukluks. That was amazing enough by itself. We walked in zero degree temperatures, on ice and snow, in what looked like bedroom slippers.

The camping itself was humbling yet comfortable enough to make you realize how the generations survived. Once tents were set up, Garrett chopped, we sawed, he split the wood, Alexandra fed it into the stove, and we had 70 degrees inside in about an hour. We chipped holes in the ice and hauled buckets of water back to pots. Yes, it was a race against finger-numbing cold, but in the end, Tano and his friends Miles and Jonathan were so comfortable that they cackled into the night with Garrett. Clara and I played Scrabble. Michelle, Alexandra, and another guest, Ed, talked about how this experience made them feel so alive.

The treks during the day were among the most serene in my life. We saw no big stuff like moose, but we were mystified at every turn. How did this strand of virgin, towering, 300-year-old pines escape the lumberjacks of a century ago? How could we see so many tracks of the elusive lynx and not know whether it is miles away or laughing at us behind our backs? There was the fat woodpecker that wound through the trees to within almost an arm's length. There was the nightglow of a subtle aurora, with the ice cracking like thunder as the temperature plummeted.

On the final day, as we drove out, we were graced by the sight of a bald eagle flying over the treetops of a lake, with mile-high Mount Katahdin glistening in the background. As beautiful as it was, it almost felt like Hollywood compared to the quiet we had just left.

Two days after that trip, Michelle, Tano, Miles, and I went back into the wilderness with 13 other members of our Boy Scout troop and co-ed Venturing crew. We snowshoed to an Appalachian Mountain Club hut high up in the White Mountains.

This was the second year of hiking to a hut in winter. With a year of experience, the youths went from excitement to their own serenity. They still played in the snow and oohed at mountain vistas, but now they also studied animal tracks and air bubbles traveling under top layers of ice in rivers and identified different trees. As if being rewarded for our nuanced inquisitiveness, we were entertained at the hut at dusk at 3,300 feet by a red fox. The youth were so into it they cheerfully went to the ice hole to carry buckets of water.

On our morning out, I asked them to walk in formation for a team snowshoe photograph across the ice. As they walked, a warm feeling came over me in the biting wind. Amongst them were young people who beat me by three decades in saying, "It ain't cold, it's all in your mind." I just know that in the decades to come, they will become men and women who will not be defeated by the cold, cruel world.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.