"The road is usually a frozen river. To break through the ice and fall into the river is yet another way to die. Sometimes the road is the frozen-over Arctic Ocean. When you break through that ice, you sink. They say it’s the air bubbles in your decomposing body that cause it to float, and in the sub-freezing water of the Arctic Ocean, human bodies don’t decompose. If you fall into the Arctic Ocean, your corpse may be well-preserved, but no one will risk a life, or expend the cost, to retrieve it.
Suppose you do fall in. By the time you reach the surface, the hole you fell into may have frozen over already. If you can punch through ice with lungs full of 35° water, maybe you deserve to live, but then you’re soaking wet in subzero temperatures, and you will spend your last few conscious minutes too delirious with hypothermia to be thankful that your next of kin will have something to bury."
"You don’t need to break through the Arctic Ocean or get in a bar fight to die north of the Arctic Circle. Being outside will kill you just fine. In February, the temperature is often -40° F in the middle of the afternoon. Most people will never know cold like this. I grew up in Minnesota, and once or twice it would get that cold, usually at night, but Minnesota is humid. Minnesota has lights and trees and telephones that always work. The Arctic is the world’s second-largest desert. The snowflakes are large and dry like the little paper circles from a three-hole punch. You can’t even eat them to stay alive. They will dehydrate you. They will kill you faster than drinking no water at all.
"You don’t need to break through the Arctic Ocean or get in a bar fight to die north of the Arctic Circle. Being outside will kill you just fine. In February, the temperature is often -40° F in the middle of the afternoon. Most people will never know cold like this. I grew up in Minnesota, and once or twice it would get that cold, usually at night, but Minnesota is humid. Minnesota has lights and trees and telephones that always work. The Arctic is the world’s second-largest desert. The snowflakes are large and dry like the little paper circles from a three-hole punch. You can’t even eat them to stay alive. They will dehydrate you. They will kill you faster than drinking no water at all.
Often, while on assignment in the arctic, I used to walk from the building where I worked to the post office. The three-block walk took me past what I was told was the northernmost traffic light in the world. Who is to say? In that climate, on foot, a Don’t Walk sign is a mild death threat. Even if you’re wearing moisture-wicking base-layers and down pants and Dakota boots graded to -80°, the moisture on your eyeballs will still freeze. Under a balaclava and behind a tight pair of wraparound polarized lenses, you will blink the ice from your eyes as you walk. When you step indoors, the meltwater from your irises will moisten your cheeks, and you will remember to wipe them dry before you go outside again."
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