Diary of an Alaskan Winter
You know it's cold when all the sled dogs are inside
THE SUN IS SETTING, the pink sky fading to indigo and I’m sunk up to my thighs in the snow. The forty-mile-per-hour wind gusts are making my eyes water and behind me I can hear Quito, one of my chihuahuas, crying in the pull-sled. He and my other chihuahua are in a banana box, into which I’ve stuffed a sleeping bag and some hand warmers and then bungeed a shell jacket over top. I don’t want him to cry, but at the same time, it reassures me that he hasn’t frozen to death in there. The sled is attached to my waist and I feel it pull me back as I take another step, heaving myself forward and then sinking into the snow again.
“How long do you think we’ll be post-holing?” I shout to my friend Caitlin, who is struggling alongside me in the deep drifts.
“I don’t know,” she shouts above the sound of the wind. “Until we
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