Intro

It used to be easier to disappear into mystery. Around 1988 or so, I boarded a plane north, landed late in the night, passed through Canadian customs, rented a car, and drove into a shaken snow globe of a storm, paper map and scrawled directions in hand. Cell phones and the internet were years away; I had an address and the name of a place and not much else. It was a pilgrimage into deepening, thickening snow, and that was all I needed, or needed to know.

Hours passed, a maze of mountain roads, and the whole world seemed in hibernation. Snowbanks grew until they towered overhead. The little car strained against unplowed drifts, and then, several hours after midnight, I saw the sign: Trout Lake Lodge Snowcat Skiing. A note tacked to the door directed me to an attic room and a seven a.m. start.

The next morning the snow was falling straight down, stellar dendrite crystals, the kind of snowflakes kids draw, falling