My Love for Snow and Ice

Winter is coming! Plus my favourite reads set in the cold.

I’m a snow lover at heart

There's something wonderful about snow.

Winter is the time of short daylight hours, and even during the day it is often grey in grey in Northern Germany.

Falling snow transforms the once dull, joyless streets and dreary green-brown gardens within minutes. Snow covers sad-looking flowerbeds and entire landscapes, brightens the trees and bushes - and ultimately the world. Everything lightens up, sometimes glistens even when the sun comes out.

Snow changes the outlines of the surroundings and that’s incredibly beautiful. It softens the landscape, the angular, the hard, the man-made, it covers signs of civilisation like cars, garden walls or rubbish bins. The world looks unusually tidy. Untouched even.

As the snowflakes fall softly and silently, the world becomes quiet.

It’s a seemingly unobstrusive type of weather, it doesn’t come with noise or force, it tiptoes in and if you don’t happen to look out of the window, you might miss it at first. Subtle, but with an unmistakeble impact.

It is almost hypnotising to watch the snowflakes fall slowly.

A starry sky at night, the smell of cold and snow, the crunch of the snow under my boots - it’s simply wonderful!

It’s weather that is perfect for a highly sensitive person like me.

I’m a snow lover at heart.

First snow of this season

Snow always makes me smile and I long for its first appearance every winter. This year it was the 20th of November at our place (just north of Hamburg) and I watched the snowfall in the afternoon for more than an hour from my window, smiling. (After having jumped up and down excitedly for a couple of minutes and alerting my husband so he didn’t miss the first snowflakes of the season, of course. It has to be celebrated properly, doesn’t it? ☃️ )

Our maple was already covered in snow afterwards, as was the lawn (well, that’s what we call it, actually there’s more moss, sorrel and dandelion than grass, but you couldn’t tell for the next few days anyway). The first snowflakes remained on the patio. Not for long, but it was a start.

Wonderful wintertime words

I recently stumbled across a lovely book: A Winter Dictionary: A Collection of Words for the Festive Season by Paul Anthony Jones.

I’ve found wonderful words for the season in there, words I’ve never heard of before.

There’s clinkerbell (an icicle) and frost-dogs (tiny frozen particles of falling snow that are so small and light that they often seem to hang in the air rather than fall to the ground).

Have you ever heard of a hogamadog? It’s a ball of snow made larger by rolling it through a snowfield and mainly used to build a snowperson.

Weatherwise we better prepare ourselves for driffles (slight, stormy showers of rain or snow) and slobber (a cold, wet, sleety mixture of wet snow and rain) or drow (a cold mist, heavy or damp enough to almost feel like rain).

Very appropriate in that case is the Icelandic word gluggaveður for weather that looks nice from indoors, but you don’t want to be outside in it. It literally translates as ‘window weather’.

I especially liked the word hunch-weather (weather cold or unpleasant enough to make people walk with hunched shoulders). If you still have to go outside it may be a good idea to do it thouroughly mobled (to dress in multiple layers of clothing to keep warm). Then you can break the brod (be the first person to walk across a field of fresh snow) and hear the wonderful crumping sound (the light crunching sound of walking on thick or slightly frozen snow) in a very happy mood.

These words and many more made me immensely happy. (And they made me giggle a lot.)

Isn’t the very sound of these words just marvellous? I have a soft spot for onomatopoeic words, words that sound similar to the noise they refer to.

I really enjoyed this book, especially the chapters on expressions for all things nature. There are so many wonderfully fitting and often humorous words that appeal to many different senses that it was very funny to read.

The book has prompted me to take a closer look again and pay even more attention to the changing seasons, the subtleties of the weather, nature - and language.

As English ist not my first language, it’s particularly interesting to learn more specific expressions, very specific words, even if in this case they are often historical ones.

It’s a very enriching book, both for language and nature enthusiasts. And it doesn’t read like a ‘boring’ dictionary at all.

Not only beautiful, but also harsh

Snow may be lovely and beautiful to look at where I live, but bitter frost, ice and snow can also make for harsh conditions, a pretty uninhabitable environment.

Although I’m not an adventurous person myself, quite the opposite, I love reading about other people’s adventures. Or maybe that’s why.

I am especially fond of adventures in the snow. I like the remoteness, the isolation, the superficially beautiful but underneath harsh conditions, nature in its true power, where civilisation, inventions, human arrogance of being in control of everything doesn’t necessarily apply, but where you are thrown back to the simplest things, a matter of survival.

Books set in Greenland, Svalbard, Alaska, Canada, the Arctic and the Antarctic have appealed to me a lot in recent years. I love reading and watching documentaries about these parts of the world - in my warm, cosy home, with a cup of tea, snuggled up under my blanket.

I have undertaken many journeys in my mind to these places during my hibernation (aka recovery from complete exhaustion). I needed them somehow. They reflected my own emotional landscape, my feelings, my state of being. Survival mode. On the one hand, I wanted to be far away from people and civilisation. On the other, I was mentally being thrown back to mere survival myself (at least that's how it felt) and found myself in a cold, relentless, bleak world. It was a matter of breathing in, breathing out, putting one foot in front of the other if I could, or finding shelter, some basic safety if not.

So my love for snow and ice has taken another turn and been given another layer. But I'm in love with them all the same.

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My favourite books set in snow & ice

It's not easy to choose just three books, but the following have left a particularly deep impression on me:

Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival, Velma Wallis

This short novel is a retelling of an old Athabascan legend set on the upper Yukon River. During a bitterly cold winter, a nomadic tribe is struck by a dangerous famine. As an old tribal law dictates, the chief decides to leave the two oldest women behind as useless eaters. The women are suddenly faced with the challenge of fighting for their survival again or dying. But in the loneliness of the icy wilderness, the unbelievable happens: They don’t give up, but remember and regain their skills and abilities, which they thought they had long forgotten. They support each other and survive. One day they meet their tribe again…

This very moving book is one of my all-time favourites. I have my copy for over 20 years now. It has survived every decluttering, and I can’t say that about many of my books over such a long time. When I read the book every three or four years, I always discover something new for my particular phase of life. That's what great books do.

Call of the Wild: My Escape to Alaska, Guy Grieve

Guy Grieve left his desk job to spend a year alone in the Alaskan wilderness. He threw himself into the harsh environment, without any experience and miles from the nearest ‘neighbours’, armed with only the most basic equipment. He soon found - whether building a log cabin from scratch, hunting, ice fishing, handling a dog team or dodging bears - that life in the wilderness was anything but easy.

A wild adventure and a very thrilling read, a story told with humour and insight. Gripping!

Ins ewige Eis!: Nordpol und Südpol in einem Jahr, Agata Loth-Ignaciuk & Bartlomiej Ignaciuk

Note: Original Polish title: Marek Kamiński. Jak zdobyć bieguny Ziemi… w rok. (Regrettably, there is no English edition. The title roughly translates as: Marek Kaminski. How to Conquer the Poles of the Earth... In a Year.)

This book for young people tells the fascinating story of Marek Kaminski’s expeditions to the North and the South Pole in the same year. A march of almost 1000 kilometres or 1400 kilometres respectively into the eternal ice. At temperatures of up to minus 50 degrees Celsius. All his luggage - from tent to half a toothbrush - on a 120-kilo sledge. With one companion or completely on his own respectively. A unique endeavour!

This book also provides a wealth of amazing information about the Arctic and Antarctic and in detail how to prepare for such an expedition. A book for the polar explorers of tomorrow.

This book is really special. Not only does it tell a very exciting and incredible story, but the design is also beautiful and interesting. You literally hear the cracking of the shattering ice floes and feel the biting cold. The expressive illustrations, sometimes in comic style, are marvellous and give the book a very modern, edgy feel. The use of colours is striking.

Easily my favourite children’s non-fiction book of 2024!

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Winter is here!

I’m reading a lot about Greenland at the moment. What an interesting place! I have a feeling there might be coming a ‘My Reads - Special Edition’ in a few weeks…. I’ll keep you posted (literally)!

Meanwhile, I enjoy the first signs of winter. Although the first snow has melted, I have another ace up my sleeve.

The new Biathlon World Cup season is about to start in Finland and I’m really excited! I don’t normally watch TV and there are no other sports I follow, but biathlon is a long-lasting love. 25 years at least!

So I’m going to watch every race again this season. And enjoy not only the sport, but also the perfect winter landscape in which it takes place.

Winter is the slow season and I love it for that.

Snow and ice, cold and darkness contrast wonderfully with light, warmth and comfort when you return to a cosy house, making coming home extra special.

And I happen to love being at home the most. Perfect!

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