Snowhook by Jo Storm

“You think it’ll still work?” he said, lifting his hand to indicate the stove.

“Let me see,” she said.

He already had a pot of snow melting on the side of the fire. He had built the fire several feet from the sheared-off boulder face, scooping most of the snow so that it built a bank on the other side, toward the lake. The glow of the campfire on the rock illuminated their faces with reddish light. The rock was absorbing the fire’s warmth, but soon it would start radiating heat back, which was why Peter had built the fire several feet away from it: they could sit between the fire and the rock, getting warmth from both sides. The snow, still falling, sputtered on the branches in the fire and wetted their ends, but only for a few moments, as the heat of the fire dried them out.

It was a good fire. She had underestimated the importance of the light, for as she was getting changed, twilight had fallen around them in its quick wintry way. The heat drew her in. Is this what moths feel like? she wondered. The way she was feeling, she could have cheerfully jumped right into the fire. She settled for leaning in close, feeling the heat coating her face as she studied the stove by firelight.

The tines were bent, but otherwise the stove seemed okay. Peter had gotten another fuel canister out, so she carefully threaded it onto the stove, primed it, and started it up. Peter watched carefully. The stove sputtered from the air in the line, flickered, caught, then held steady. They grinned at each other over the blue, hissing flames.

“I’ll get another pot, you grab some dinner,” he said. Hannah went to the pack and got out two packages of spaghetti and meatballs. Her hand knocked into something square as she was searching the pack. It was the emergency radio.

She took the backcountry rations and the radio back to the fire and lifted the red plastic radio.

“We can hear the weather,” she said.

Peter took the grey food packets from her, grunting. “I have to get more wood before it gets too dark.” He opened both and dumped them into a big pot, set it on the camp stove, and adjusted the heat.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll watch dinner.”

He put his snowshoes on. In the middle of buckling them, he paused. “It was a hare, by the way,” he said.

Hannah looked up from stirring. “Huh?”

“You said it was a rabbit. That the dog was chasing. It wasn’t — it was a hare.”

“What’s the difference?”

He stood up, shucking snow off the shoes and putting his mitts back on. “Rabbits don’t change colour. And they don’t hang out in big open spaces like the sugar bush. They like scrub, small trees, and stuff where they blend in.”

“It did look kind of big for a rabbit,” she said. She remembered how huge a leap it had taken and the sheer impossibility of it leaping sideways ten feet, then turning on a dime.

“So, they’re not the same species?” she asked.

“Not really. Lots of people get them mixed up,” he added. He had picked up a short piece of rope and was slinging it around his body to help hold firewood. “Rabbits, they have lots of babies, more than once. Hares have fewer, and they nurse them, too. Rabbits kick out the kits once they’ve weaned.”

Hannah was feeling light-headed; she didn’t know if it was the tiredness, or the smell of warming spaghetti, but laughter was bubbling up in her chest. “Well, I guess that answers one question.”

He looked at her. “Eh?”

“Why there’s no expression about breeding like hares.”

Peter rolled his eyes, but in a teasing way. “Duhhh.”

She stuck the spoon in her mouth. “Hurry up or I’ll eat everything.”

Peter adjusted his glasses and started off. “You’d better not.”

After he’d moved out of the circle of light and slowly disappeared into the gloom, Hannah turned her attention to the radio. It had a solar panel and also a battery. Since it had been sitting in the dark pack for two days, she would need the battery. She popped the back open, connected the leads to the nine-volt battery cell, and turned the radio on.

The radio, though small, had many functions. Besides the solar panel on top, it had a flashlight on the side and a small speaker on the bottom. It even had a hand crank in case the battery died and there was no sunlight.

There were three settings: AM, FM, and WB. It was already set to WB, the weather band. There were no stations on the weather band, just a constant repetition of the weather in English and then in French for the entire region, from North Bay to Kapuskasing. She turned up the volume until she could clearly hear the forecast. It was odd to hear another human being, even one who sounded slightly robotic, like the broadcast was snippets of different people talking cut together, instead of a live person.

“Today, for Timmins and surrounding area, snow and ice pellets. High minus one, low minus fourteen, with one hundred percent chance of precipitation. Fifteen to twenty centimetres of snow. Visibility zero. Overnight, temperature dropping to minus twenty degrees. For tomorrow, clear in the morning —”

She switched from the weather band to FM and pushed the tuner buttons, trying to find a station.

“So let’s make sure we’ve got what we need with the cold snap moving in. Bundle up, people, I know there’s lots of you without power or a generator. Get to a neighbour or, if you’re okay, go check on your neighbour, all right? They’ve got help on the way, but still, it’s no time to be alone. Remember, the community centre is open, and so is the gym at —”