Setting out from his home in Hoarfrost River, located off of McLeod Bay on the East Arm of the Great Slave Lake, David Olesen reflects in his book Kinds of Winter on how his isolated living becomes even more singularly secluded over the course of four extended mushing trips. Reconstructing these four annual trips from the early 2000s — one to the South, the next to the East, and followed by trips North and West — Olesen’s formidable mosaic of journal entries, photographs, and retrospective writing chronicles living an experience that for most of us will remain unimaginable.
The continued repetition of what must be Olesen’s personal mantra, “hour by hour” (and its spinoff franchises “little by little” and “miles and miles”) best illustrates the mindset inspired by the grueling aspects not only of northern or homestead living, but to northern travel over the land, an intense event that very few experience on a dog sled. This oft-repeated phrase also gives a glimpse into Olesen’s beautiful writing.
Kinds of Winter is embellished with references to poetry and Olesens’ own thoughtful excursions into northern living and the information age, as mushing these long trips provides the space to think (and keep on thinking) in the relative isolation of solo travel across the land up here. Hour by hour is, in fact, very Shakespearean — not that he said it first, mind you, but he has certainly been among the loudest voices in history to do so. “From hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, and then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale.”
Of course, because Shakespeare is a darkly funny writer, this line from As You Like It is not in the realm of Olesen’s poetic prose, instead being a syphilitic rot joke as Shakespeare’s English was pronounced far more phonetically than the English we use now.
After a month of reviewing mostly Canada Reads books it’s a delight to be back up north for my reviews — and kind of shocking, too. Every time Olesen mentions Yellowknife or a piece of familiar geography my mind sparks up as if to say “I know that place!” And, as there always is when reading books by northern navigators such as Dominique F. Prinet in his book, Flying to Extremes (which was recently released in French), Kinds of Winter has an author’s note discussing Olesen’s decision making process of whether to use celsius or fahrenheit, miles versus kilometers, and (in Olesen’s case) setting comfortably into a measurement vernacular that feels quite Canadian in the sense that it never stays firmly on the side of metric or imperial measurements.
Olesen observes, as someone who grew up in Illinois, that in the Northwest Territories “cold is king, winter is this country. Ice and snow set the limits and write the rules here.” This seems to be true in a myriad of metaphorical and practical ways… if you’ve ever considered (or wanted to know) all of the creative places where people and animals can get frostbite, Olesen’s gnarly depictions from the eastern leg of his trip are a fantastic place to start your reading.
With an appendix that includes recipes (every book I’ve read by people who live on a homestead include their personalized recipes) as well as tips and tricks on sled dog care and dead-reckoning navigation, Kinds of Winter is a fantastic read for those ready to get on the land or, of course, simply read about the experience and think “wow, I’d never do that, but I’m sure glad somebody did and wrote about it.”