Freeze-up Summary and Analysis

Thanksgiving Dinner is suet and meat dust for the chickadees, camp robbers and squirrel. Dick eats loin chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, salad, sourdough biscuits and shortcake with blueberries and drinks hot chocolate and a marshmallow with cookies. Dick plans for seasonal freeze up by building a sled and mending his snowshoes. He makes a snow shovel and ice creepers from a fifteen-gallon oil drum. Dick uses Mylar plastic and silica gel to absorb moisture between panes for a thermopane window. He installs a fireplace damper to keep the cabin smoke free. He stores the canoe in Spike's cabin over winter. Strong blowing winds alternate with dead calm and freezing temperature to thicken an ice highway for travel. He is dismayed by wolves killing a moose calf left uneaten to rot.

He opens a waterhole by chipping through six and one-half...