I. First my Christmas story -- this really happened to me in the early 1980's:

One year when I was living and teaching in the Yukon, my then husband-to-be had gone off on a Christmas jaunt with another friend to Calgary.  Alone and feeling a little abandoned on Christmas night, I helped serve dinner at the Skookum Jim Native Friendship Center and then went to other friend's home for dessert and a cutthroat round of Monopoly. I was to fly out the next day to meet up with said husband material in Vancouver, and anxious about unforseen problems that might keep me from making the flight, I had invited a large group to Boxing Day brunch at my place at the Carcross Cutoff.

(from the Mt Lorne Firefighter maps collection)

In those days I drove a 3/4 ton pickup truck that was actually parts of several trucks pieced together. From time to time it let me down. There was no way I was going to miss that flight so having friends come out to visit ensured I had both good company and a ride to the airport if I needed it. As it turned out my intuition was right.

After the festivities as I was driving back to my place from town, the fan belt on the truck suddenly let go.  It was 30 below (-30^o C). Unless you've lived in a place with no artificial lights and no pollution, you will find it hard to imagine what the night was like. The air was crisp and clear; the scraggy pines and snowy hills and the black ribbon of 2 lane highway that led homeward were bathed in the light of the full moon.  I pulled the car over to the side of the empty road to survey the valley ahead, to wonder at the sight and to ponder my plight.

(This image from Bryce Muir captures the quality of the light.)

I was about half way home and out in the middle of nowhere with no spare fanbelt, no pantyhose to cut up and tie into a loop to replace it, and really no knowledge of how install either anyway.  It was too cold and too far to walk, and without a fan to recharge the battery, the headlights and the heater would very shortly become useless.  My friends had to drive the same route out to brunch, but they weren't due for 12 hours and that was too long to wait. I stood and looked at the moon and searched my memory for some snippet of overheard truck talk that might give me a clue about how to get the hapless truck back on the road.

I will admit that for a few minutes the headline 'Local Teacher Found Frozen to Death' ran through my mind as did the bits of a Robert Service poem where the narrator tells of having to cut up the frozen corpse of his dead friend to get it into the coffin.  

"Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut in the shadow of the Pole,
With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can't control?
Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin,
And that seems to say: "You may try all day, but you'll never jam me in?"
I'm not a man of the quitting kind, but I never felt so blue
As I sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what I'd do.
Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs that were nosing round about,
And I lit a roaring fire in the stove, and I started to thaw Bill out.

Well, I thawed and I thawed for thirteen days, but it didn't seem no good;
His arms and his legs stuck out like pegs, as if they were made of wood.
Till at last I said: "It ain't no use -- he's froze too hard to thaw;
He's obstinate, and he won't lie straight, so I guess I got to -- saw."
So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs, and I laid him snug and straight
In the little coffin he picked hisself, with the dinky silver plate,
And I came nigh near to shedding a tear as I nailed him safely down;
Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh, and I started back to town."  

From: The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill in BALLADS OF A CHEECHAKO* *newcomer to the Yukon -- still in their first year of living there

(Dawson City Yukon in 1899 From: 5/02/08 in Ursi's Blog: Fine Things for Your Delight -- Ursi also has some terrific webcams posted here including 2 of Santa's Office at the North Pole.)

(to finish the story . . .) As I stood, it slowly dawned on me that the extreme cold was not my enemy me but could actually save me.

When it goes below -15^o 0r -20^o and you're driving out on the highway, you normally wedge a rectangle of cardboard between the front grill and the radiator so the wind chill doesn't turn the antifreeze inside the rad to jelly.  I realized that if I pulled that out, the cold rush of air might just replace the action of the fan and prevent the motor from overheating and cracking the block. There was plenty of light to drive without headlights, so I wrapped myself up in an old sleeping bag that I kept in the back for the dogs and continued on my way. Half an hour later I was safe at home and drinking a hot rum beside the barrel stove that had been restoked with the driest of logs and was belching smoke out into the starry night.

And that was my greatest Christmas adventure.

II. Next some 'edutreats' -- because we all know that teachers have nothing but free time to play around with new tools during their holidays.

Creative Tools For and By Kids :a wiki project for students ages 9-14.

Paul Hamilton advocates inclusive classroms; click Quick Links tab for tools.

From Larry Ferlazzo: great post on resources for royalty free music.

Quick Media Converter: untried by me but says it does flv files.

Over 24,000 images: public domain.

A free online collaborative writing tool

There's bound to be something in her lists in Diigo that you'll find useful.

III. I want to finish up this morning by wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Whatever Holiday You Celebrate at this time of year.

Here is my favourite Christmas card of all time. It could have been painted in the Yukon but is from a South Dakota artist. I grew up in Winnipeg in Manitoba which is north of North Dakota which is north of South Dakota so I still feel connected to this image.  

"A Christmas Tale" by Mick Harrison

Music by Incompetech