Through the Ice into the Water

 Sometimes I have occasion to write some personal historical things after talking with others or sharing experiences. Being a writer to a certain extent I like to utilize everything I write so far as is reasonable, in the way native Americans were known for using every part of a buffalo for something (though I never heard anything about buffalo nails from those large hooves). So I post such stories someplace infrequently...

This is about the time I went into Noyes Slough- a fork of the Chena River, in Fairbanks years ago. I usually walked across the water because the highway bridge sidewalks were always covered in snow from plows. So I had my headphones on listening to music one day with a Walkman in a coat pocket returning home from the store 3.5 miles away and in the middle of the water the ice was rotten and I began sinking quickly into the cold water pushing the chunk of ice below my feet. The temperature was about 25 F as best I recall.

 I had read about how people carry ladders with them when climbing Mt. McKinley alone so they can prevent themselves from falling into an unseen crevasse. I remembered that while sinking into the water with my feet pushing the chunk of ice I had been on. I put out my arms to the sides and arrested my decent into the water at the armpits. For a moment I could see the world from a level with the ice point of view and thought that if I wanted to extract myself from the very serious situation to continue living I had best get on with it. 

Eventually I got my feet up onto the ice and levered myself out somehow.There is a power plant somewhere upstream apparently- I discovered later, and it releases hot water into the slough and that was what rotted the ice from below. It was still four or five inches thick. I finished crossing the stream and walked back to my apartment with my wet pants freezing stiff as a board. So apparently my blood was very cold and I mostly laid on the floor of the apartment for three days trying to warm up. I could feel the cold icy blood in my heart. It was a definite learning experience. So much for that story. Northerners preponderantly learn from experience about a lot of ways to stay warm. Southerners often haven't got that opportunity to learn cold weather stuff.