Published December 9, 2007 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune

Perfect winter eludes us again

By Aaron J. Brown

The last few winters have provided people in northern Minnesota more complaints than snow. These odd seasons spurred late autumns, intense but inconsistent winters and a general lack of snow. This upset the delicate balance that kept us reasonably sane through the many cold months of long nights and bad TV. To put it in perspective, where suburbanites spend extra income inflating the real estate market or leasing foreign cars, people here buy expensive snowmobiles and ice fishing equipment. The key difference is that discretionary purchases on the Iron Range require winter weather for people to actually use them.
 
During a few glorious years about a decade ago, winter recreation boomed and seasonal tourism thrived. But then winter around here got kind of weird, like the girlfriend who yells and cries a lot for no good reason. We had some brown Thanksgivings and a brown Christmas. More important, people with very expensive snow machines (seriously, they're like cars, only with lower resale value) have been unable to use them consistently.

Well, here we are in early December. We just got a good foot of snow last weekend with more coming this weekend. That's plenty for snowmobiling. I could tell people were anxious last Saturday because when the first flakes began to fall we saw a guy in what appeared to be new jacket, helmet and machine trying to run his snowmobile out in a grassy field. It was like the dude who shows up at the night club at 4 p.m. Not cool. But apparently I was wrong in assuming the universal goodness of the snow.

I know complaining about the weather is standard conversational fare in the North Woods. But I had believed that winter recreation enthusiasts would largely unite to welcome the snow dump. To the contrary I learned, from many different sources, that because the first ice of the season hadn’t thickened enough to allow vehicles, all the snow creates a long period of slushy lakes. The snow melts and re-freezes atop the thin ice to create conditions poorly suited for snowmobiling, four-wheeling, or ice fishing. Sure, you could snowmobile on land, but like the proverbial grass on the other side of the fence, there is no allure like that which you cannot have.

All this begs the question: has their ever been a “normal” winter? When you look at the big picture, here we are spinning on a chunk of magma-filled rock rotating around a star. Our rock tilts just right so that our blood doesn’t boil (as it would on neighboring Venus) in the summer or freeze (as it would on our other neighbor, Mars). Sometimes, though, it snows before the ice is thick enough to drive your ATV and that makes slush. I’m willing to accept that in lieu of exile to a gas giant with 45 moons and no oxygen. 

Then there is the matter of climate change. I hate to bring it up because every time someone does, groups of environmentalists and global warming-deniers start painting their faces and sharpening meat cleavers like the guys from “Gangs of New York.” Nevertheless, if the world’s climate changes the way most scientists predict it would stand to reason that our winter weather might go through an adjustment. Who knows? By 2070 maybe a hypothetical Mrs. Milovich will lean over her Hibbing fence and ask Mr. Maki how his pineapples are this year. A cute thought, if the scenario could somehow avoid a global war for resources (always a buzz kill).

There's just no winter like those 1990s winters, apparently. Those were too good. Now our once hearty Iron Range society expects only the finest of winters when December rolls around. I say a little slush beats a Christmas on Venus any day.

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