A Warm Coat on the Coldest Night

My panicked vision narrows in on the spark of the flint. With laser focus I attempt to permeate the lighter with my will: Light, god damn it. Just light. A prayer.

It won’t. It’s too cold. At -40 degrees inside, the lighter fluid has gummed up. Nestled between my breasts inside 6 layers of clothes, the lighter has a home for re-warming every 20 or 30 flicks, but even that home is growing cold.

After a few minutes or several lifetimes of body heat warming, I try again. Retrieve the lighter, remove the mittens, roll the flint. Again the spark of hope. Sunset oranges scatter around my blurring vision as my focus narrows in closer still. With every flick, the frozen calluses on my thumb rub off, exposing meat underneath. I see that my fingers are bloody, but I cannot feel the wounds. They have been numb since before the first attempt.

Hope sparking and waning with every flick, I glance up from the lighter at my canine companion, Atka. He whines softly at my grief. Through the onsetting delirium, I smile at him. “It’s okay.” I whisper to him, “it will be okay. Just have to get this wood stove lit, and it will be fine.”

Three months ago this wasn’t even a dream yet. I was in Alabama, where the lowest low doesn’t drop below 0. I had never even conceived of - 40 degrees. I could not have comprehended the situation I find myself in now: hypothermic, alone in the remote wilderness of the northern Yukon Territories, facing down the kind of cold snap that had already killed one of the sled dogs outside.

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Safe and warm in the suburbs of Huntsville, Alabama at my mother’s house for a short stint between nomadic adventures, a much more naive version of me had birthed the plan that would land me in such desperation. Atka, my 3 year old husky mix, was the inspiration. At the time of this scheme’s inception, Atka was a high energy, high spirited rebel. His idea of a great time was pulling me down the street like an old plow tossing up dirt.

Atka had already changed my life dramatically, with his demand for exercise and wild spaces taking me far down rowdy Oregon river sheds and up Colorado’s majestic peaks. Before we met I hadn’t considered myself much of an outdoorswoman. Now, just 3 years later, I had been working the last several months as a raft guide and winter was coming. I needed a winter sport, a job, and a way to keep Atka (“THIS crazy S.O.B.”) satisfied. The answer seemed obvious; the venn diagram overlapped at “become a dog sled trainer”.

There are a few things that perhaps should have stood in my way but did not: money (I had none), the prospect of locating and getting hired for such a job, my absurdly minimal experience with nature or wilderness survival, my shockingly limited knowledge of dog training, or the mundane fact that I had only experienced one true winter in my life (Born in South Louisiana, my previous winter in the rocky mountains had been my first).

With all the vigor of youthful ignorance, I scoured obscure dogsledding forums until I found someone willing to hire an idealistic dog enthusiast with a dream: two Iditarod racers in the northern Yukon Territories with a kennel of 60 Alaskan Huskies had a dry cabin with my name on it. Only 3500 miles between me and my dreams. With everything I owned in the trunk and my dog in the passenger's seat, I pointed my Subaru Outback north and never looked back.

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The cast iron of the wood stove is cold on my bare bloody fingers, the smell of diesel fuel assaults my already-hazy awareness. It’s taken a million years outside in the dark, with frozen headlamp and frozen chainsaw, to transform frozen logs into the fuel that might save my life.

Inside, vision blurring and heart racing, I’ve soaked a bundle of kindling in diesel: paper bags wrung into the echo of gnarled roots. All I need is a tiny bit of starter flame and surely -- surely -- I will be warm soon.

Panic rises in my body every moment I lack flame. A background of birch and cedar supports this hopeful stack of twigs and paper. A glance at the thermometer reveals - 42 degrees at my kitchen table. Back to the woodstove: save me! Save me. Save me. Please save me. Frozen fingers reach for frozen lighter: flick -- flick -- flick. Fail. They won’t bend properly anymore, these dissociated limbs. The tiny muscles are freezing. My grip fails and the lighter falls to the floor.

Hope recedes, and I collapse onto my dog. The tears that well up in frustration and fear freeze my eyelashes. Overcome with anger, I scream and cry into Atka’s thick double layered coat. Curse this lighter that rejects my will! I throw it across the room. Curse this damned headlamp that won’t turn on. Curse this god-awful chainsaw with it's gelled fuel. Curse this frozen 12 by 12 foot box that was all that stood between me and the cold. Curse these pathetic tools that have failed! Curse my fragile body and it's pathetic, useless, frozen fingers that won’t bend. And above all, curse this never ending cold!

Atka puts his head on top of me, and my anger pendulums to a panicked sort of gratitude. Thank god for this dog, here with me to witness the end of my life. Thank you Atka. Thank you headlamp, thank you chain saw, thank you lighter! I can’t figure out how to use you but you are my only hope. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.

I brush off Atka to seek the tossed lighter. Back to this game. Warm the lighter against my ever-cooling body. Pep talk my damaged fingers to keep going. Retrieve the lighter, remove the mittens, roll the flint. Again the spark of hope. Again the hope dies.

I am going to die. I am going to die alone with my dog in a frozen cabin, 300 miles from anywhere, in the depths of the Yukon Wilderness.

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Arriving in the Yukon Territories was like landing a spaceship on another planet. This crazy endeavor that had taken weeks - driving on icy highways, through wind whipped blizzards, and surrounded by endless night - had resolved into a storybook vision. 12 feet of snow covered the forest floor. Huge pine, spruce, and birch trees erupted from pristine white in all directions and as far as the eye could see. I was hundreds of miles away from a grocery store or a gas station, and the small compound in front of me functioned completely off the grid.

A tiny log cabin became my home, every piece of it handmade and left slightly unfinished, with no frills: no paint, no modern insulation, no door knob… oh, and no running water or electricity. The thickness of the logs did the insulating and candles did the lighting. 60 kennels decorated the majority of the property, each one the residence of an Iditarod-trained Alaskan Husky.

I was responsible for the entire property and all 61 dogs (including Atka). Every morning at 6 AM, a full four hours before the sun rose, my chores began with breakfast. Frozen fish, horse meat, and powdered supplements mingled in 5 gallon buckets. To this macabre mixture I add scalding hot water which amplifies the smell that only a dog could love.. The steam momentarily blinded me each morning while walking down the steps to the kennel below

The game was to get to all the dogs quick enough for them to eat their food before it turned to ice. Atka, being the newest member and thus lowest member of the pack, ate last. While the dogs ate, I ran poop scooping rounds -- tiny little circles of 4 kennels at a time, spiraling my way back to the compost like a bee pollinating foul-smelling flowers. Most days, I filled the kennels with extra straw to keep the dogs warm. After chores, we ran.

Atka eagerly joined the team I was assigned, making 6 with 5 young pups and 2 retired lead dogs. The team trained on snowmobiles for speed and sleds for strength. We trained every day of the week. The sun hung low all day in the far north, and so each dog sledding run began in the light of permanent dusk. Night crowded in on us as the stars emerged to light my way -- the brightest stars I’ve ever seen. Looking up, I might find the aurora borealis dancing over my head with wispy green fingers. .

More often, though, I stared at dog butts, shouting “Gee” and “Haw” to dictate our adventure every day. The dogs turned right or left with full trust that I had the navigation piece taken care of. Atka’s wits outmatched his desire to pull and, often, he kept perfect pace so his line would go slack. 20 miles a day we ran and ran… that is, until the cold front came.

While my Iditarod friends were away on a race, the temperature dropped to an astonishing -40 degrees. 61 dogs and I faced the cold alone. The first night, the oldest sled dog died. The second night, the snowmobile stopped working and all forms of training came to a complete halt. By the third night the logs of my cabin froze solid, though I didn’t yet know it.

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I am going to die, I think to myself. I am going to die alone with my dog in a frozen cabin 300 miles from anywhere in the depths of the Yukon Wilderness. How is it that this body is so FRAGILE? So WEAK? So MORTAL? The cold has seeped deep to my bones. My fingers won’t bend, won’t listen to my brain’s directives. My desperate cries continue, not over the pain of the cold or the blood on my fingers, but the futility of my own mortal existence hanging off this ridiculous tool.

Everything has started to slow down. The beautiful hand hewn logs of my ceiling grab my attention, full of lovely imperfections. Looking down at the lighter, I feel it is perhaps the most incredible modern miracle: fire in the palm of my hand. Indeed, all the matches were frozen, breaking in half with each attempted strike. As darkness starts to close in on my vision, I focus on this tiny spark of hope: the light at the end of this tunnel. It must work. It must work. It must work.

With held breath and a last flick, flame erupts from the tiny opening of bent metal. A geyser of hope. Quickly, quietly, every molecule of my myopic existence vibrating with anticipation, I move the flame to my kindling.

It catches. My breath releases with a sob. Maybe I will live after all. Hugging Atka, we sit together inches away from the wood stove and watch as fire consumes paper and then wood. Lost between the hypothermic trance and hypnotic dance of flame, I am nearly hugging the wood stove as well and the heat is barely making it to my body. My fingers and face, I forget from my medical training, are in serious danger of being burned because they’ve lost feeling and perhaps already experienced extensive nerve damage. They will no longer tell me if they are in danger. The ambient temperature slowly starts to increase.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, but I start to feel it. Warmth. Where am I? What time is it?

Oh, hello Atka. You look so concerned. Why so worried? Has something happened? I’m sure everything is fine. I will just lie down. With 20 hours of darkness, I’d like to sleep through some.

One last tiny voice in my brain, seeming so far away, says “You are not safe.” I hear her, almost a whisper, but what’s left to do? Every article of clothing I own swathes me. The woodstove burns, fighting back the cold in a long lonesome battle. My options are depleted.

As I disintegrate on the loveseat, Atka with all of his 90 pounds and thick down coat climbs up and rests his entire body on top of me. The pressure of his weight reminds me I am alive. The smell of his oily winter coat engulfs me. He is trying to keep me warm, I realize. He is trying to save my life. Hours or lifetimes pass; time becomes as meaningless as warmth. A subtle shift in the light stirs my attention from under Atka’s belly. The sun is rising. I glance over at the thermometer. It reads - 18 degrees over the kitchen sink, and I am still alive.

Prologue:

Atka is now an old man, 14, ancient in dog years. It’s been over a decade since he helped save my life in the Yukon. This particular night would not be the last of my harrowing dances with death at the hands of the Far Northern cold. Indeed, Atka and I would live many more years in Alaska and off the grid before returning to the lower 48. He would help me survive hypothermia at least one more time.

Though his love for remote wilderness is unfaded, his exploring days are over. Atka’s hips dictate that our adventures remain short and close to home. One day soon, Atka will be gone. His legacy will live on in the gifts he’s given me: a passionate love for an unleashed life, dictated not by the boxes and structures of our time but by the wild untamed spark within.