"Death Sits On Doorstep”

Northern Advocate, 18 November 1941, Page 2

"Death Sits On Doorstep”

Those who, like the writer, have j spent the greater part of their lives in the interior of Canada, where the climate is similar to that of Russia, are counting the days until November 15, writes a Canadian. By that time the ground will be like iron, the permanent snow will have come, and no remnant of any green thing will remain except the coniferous trees. The temperature will go down until the end of February from 10 degrees below zero to 40 degrees below, an average being 25 degrees below. This means that all food except sugar, beans and dry cereals, if left in an unheated building for 12 hours or transported by sleigh, will freeze absolutely solid: meat must be sawn, bread becomes like wood; apples, potatoes, etc., are rendered quite useless as they rot when thawed. In towns and the more prosperous farm houses furnaces supply heat all night, but in the majority of country places the settler must get up twice in the night when wood is burned to fill up the air-tight stove. The Bushman’s ClothingThe following are clothes put on in the morning by the man who works in the bush:—Two pairs of woollen or fleece-lined ankle and waist-length underclothes, thick felted mackinaw pants and jacket, flannel shirt, sweater, two pairs of socks, one pair of thick woollen lumberman’s stockings, sheepskin mocassins with woolly side in, and over these rubber boots or soft leather larrigans. Ordinary leather boots are absolutely useless. His cap has ear laps to prevent frostbite, and his hands are [ covered with thick woollen and then leather thumb-mitts. When driving a sleigh for any distance a fur or leather coat with collar covering the ears is necessary. He has a warm house to come back to at the end of the day unless he is a bachelor: but what the German army could do under similar condiI tions, when to spend the night in the | open with the temperature ranging bej low 30 degrees below zero, making j frostbite, if not death, imminent, and with a wind certain and the prevention of food from freezing absolutely impossible, it is difficult for a Canadian to figure out. Now Or Never For at least five months in the year in such countries as Northern Russia and Central Canada death sits on the doorstep. The man or wman living alone who could not rise from bed for a couple of days to get in firewood would freeze as solid as the quarter of moose or beef that hangs frozen in the shed. It certainly is now or never for Hitler. Shellbacks from 1915 days have the idea of trench warfare firmly established in their minds, but under conditions described above igloo or snow bank warfare would be the only equivalent. Tanks might be used for melting snow for water supply! A regiment caught with ordinary battle boots could be totally incapacitated by frozen feet in one night.