This time last year I was bikini clad on a beach in Florida. Right now, I’m wearing two pairs of pants, wool socks, and a stocking cap.

I can understand why so many people would opt for the beach. It is so much much easier and way more comfortable! (Plus, you don’t have to own as many clothes) The lifestyle I’ve chosen is harder but also very rewarding and picturesque. It’s even more so when the temperature dips below zero..

Like last weekend, temps never got above -5 degrees Fahrenheit. In those conditions, simply surviving becomes an adventure.

So whether you’re interested in a lifestyle like this, live a lifestyle like this (hello to all my neighbors!), or you just want to know what 30 below is like from the comfort of your warm home, today I’ll lay it all out.

First things first, what’s 30 below actually like?

Whether you live in a remote cabin or not, if you’ve experienced below zero temps you probably know what it’s like to step outside in the morning, take a big deep breath, feel the sting in your lungs, cough a few times, and decide shallow breathing won’t kill you.

Your nose hairs freeze and the hair around your face turns ice covered from the moisture of your breath.

Your boots squeak on the snow because, at below zero temps, the pressure from your boot won’t melt the snow. Instead, the ice crystals are crushed, making a squeaking sound.

But what is it like on the Seagull River?

It seems the colder it gets the more jaw dropping the sights become!

Extreme temps often bring sunny skies. Like last Saturday, the coldest day of the year. My neighbors, Matt and Cassidy, and I went for a 3 mile hike on the Centennial Hiking Trail. There’s a decent amount of elevation change throughout the hike. At the highest spot, we could see several lakes in the distance, not a cloud in sight.

Although it was -20, we were overheating! That’s the thing about cold weather – you have to keep moving! If there’s no wind, negative temps can be very comfortable.

Matt’s beard was white, Cassidy’s pig tails were frosty, and my buff was frozen but none of us were cold. That is, until we got on level ground and weren’t building heat. That’s when we got cold.

Luckily, we were close to the car and only a half hour from Bearskin Lodge. It seemed like all the snowmobilers on the trail had the same idea. We followed suit and ordered a beer. The funny thing about extreme temps is, if you’re moving, you don’t experience the symptoms of the chill until you sit down inside.

When I grabbed a hold of my beer, it’s like someone else’s thumb was touching the glass. I couldn’t feel it. With enough time, the numbness turned to pins and needles then back to normal.

With that being said, you have to be smart about winter up here. If our car doesn’t start when we get across the river, we better have a way to jump it or have enough supplies to last until the temperature rises.

I ended up being late to meet Matt and Cassidy for our hike because my snowmobile wouldn’t start. If I would’ve planned better, I could’ve plugged the machine into the outlet on my dad’s porch the night before.

But instead, I hiked up the river to meet them, which wasn’t half bad. Often times, hiking is much much warmer than whizzing though the air on a snowmobile. You also have more time to notice the wonders this beautiful wilderness affords us up here.

For example, ice booms! When the temperature changes, the ice either expands or contracts. This causes cracks to form in the ice. The ice is like a giant membrane that the sound travels across. Don’t worry, you wont fall through! But you will enjoy deep booming sounds that make your heart beat a little faster.

In the deafening quite of winter in the woods, the boom of ice cracking is haunting and fascinating all at once. It serves as a reminder that the natural world is alive even in the dead of winter.

In fact, the sky is more alive now than in the summer. During a 30 below zero day, it’s not uncommon to see sun dogs!

Sun dogs are bright spots at one or both sides of the sun caused by the refraction of sunlight off tiny ice crystals in the atmosphere. They’re usually accompanied by a solar halo.

And the evening sky! Not only are the sunsets more vibrant but the moon rise appears to be brighter. The stars are clearer and sharper. There’s also always the possibility of northern lights.

We also get thermal inversions on the Seagull River, meaning smoke from wood burning stoves hangs low to the ground at night and in the early morning. This happens when warm air “caps” cooler air, causing smoke to become trapped in the valley that is our river at night and in the early morning, which also looks pretty eerie!

So…that’s what 30 below zero is like.

How do you keep warm?

This is where the rubber meets the road! Keeping warm is a task. The buildings cannot be allowed to freeze up. If that were to happen, all our drinking water would be ice cubes and our poor pets would follow suit.

Unlike most homes, neither my dad or myself have conventional heating. We both use wood stoves. Since his cabin is so much larger than mind, he has a big barrel wood stove and a small traditional wood stove like mine.

The small wood stove in my cabin claims to burn for 8 to 10 hours….not at 30 below though. At those temps, I am stoking the fire with maple, pine, and birch every 2-3 hours, even during the night.

I’ve gotten pretty good at fire building. However, it doesn’t matter how good you are at fire building if you leave the cabin unattended for even a few hours.

Remember that hike I went on with friends? Well, we went lodge hopping for several hours after. I didn’t get home until 5 or 6 pm and my fire was long gone. It was about 40 degrees inside the Pepper Shack!

All I wanted to do was go to bed but even that was an ice cube. So I spent the next hour building a fire and waiting for it to warm my cabin. That night I slept with four blankets, a comforter, and a stocking cap.

I learned my lesson, never leave the cabin for very long.

So you’re chained to your cabin. You don’t get cabin fever?

Short answer, never! I might be a strange breed but I’m not alone.

Monday night, the temps had risen into the 20’s (above zero!) so Cassidy and I hopped on my snowmobile to get to the car to make the drive to Hungry Jack Lodge to watch The Bachelor with some other girls who live up here. (Yes, we know it’s trash tv but we don’t care.)

All of these girls know how to make the most of 30 below. Some knit, some weave yarn, some cross country ski, some snowshoe, some snowmobile, some hike, some are into photography, I write this blog.

My point is, there’s a lot to keep a person happy up here. My dad and I are always working on projects. If we’re tired of working inside, there’s plenty of work to be done outside. For example, the winter is the only time we can burn big brush piles, which is always fun!

“Are you nuts? Why do you enjoy this way of life?”

I enjoy this lifestyle for two reasons: simple joys and satisfaction!

Every morning I wake up to a Whiskey Jack, down feathers fluffed up, waiting outside for me to feed her a little treat. Every evening I say good night to a flying squirrel picking up the scraps of bird seed on my porch. Every day I admire the snow covered trees and smell the smoke from the pine burning in my wood stove.

All these things bring me joy in the simplest most natural way. The simple joys of the wilderness mean more to me than the flash sales and drive-throughs of the civilized world I was so swept up in.

And in the winter, these simple joys are amplified, everything moving in slow motion. The stars are brighter, the sunsets are richer, and the company is more reflective and relaxed.

Alright, so “simple joys” but what do you mean by satisfaction?

There’s a fierce satisfaction that comes with hardship. However, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think I experience a whole lot of hardship but, compared to my life in Florida, I do endure a little bit more.

Here, there is no make-believe and little forgiveness. Winter, at 30 below in a cabin, is reality in the strictest sense of the word. There isn’t as much comfort and ease.

I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but, for me, that little bit of hardship brings with it the satisfying break from the stress that accompanies the comforts of urban life.

With that being said, we’ve got another stretch of below zero weather coming. The forecast for this weekend shows a high of -5 and a low of -34. 🙂

Warm Wishes,