Snow is full of air, and so when it lies over something as a blanket it becomes a fantastic insulator. Fluffy snow actually contains nearly 90% air.
When the squirrels go underground, that means its -30 C, so that ought to be a sure warning (yep, they said that
)
Wild Rice stalks are hit, so the ripe seeds drop off. They can then be cooked dry in a pan to remove the husk and harden the kernel – apparently delicious and full of flavour.
Canada’s Boreal Forest contains a fifth of the worlds fresh water.
When creating a shelter, a good rule of thumb is that if it is thick enough that you can’t see through it, chances are, the rain won’t really get through either.
In extreme cold, a actual tent with a small wood burning stove is vastly superior to any shelter & big fire, as it will allow everything to dry out.
From the BBC’s ‘Ray Mears Northern Wilderness’ first episode about the Boreal Forest in the heart of Canada
A really cheesy camping 5-min film I saw advocated wearing a hat if cold, as you lose a lot of heat through your head. I have a good quality fluorescent yellow hat: not the sort I wear in public; but it is actually really cosy in bed. Applying a randomly picked up piece of knowledge years later – awesome .
Novelists are often told by their editors, ’show, don’t tell’. Very simply, describe the scenario in such a way that the feeling the character is experiencing is obvious; without expressly telling that feeling to the reader.
Hailey was scared.
[Contrasted with]
Hailey froze. The vampire’s teeth were only inches away from her neck. She held her breath and tried to think, but her pulse throbbed like kettle drums in her ears. She had to make her stupid heart slow down. It was only encouraging him.
An example from Randy Ingermanson’s blog
My mind asks why?
The first explanation I’ve arrived at is that the reader subconsciously forms their own opinion of what the character is going through. You can’t directly tell the subconscious what to think, but by describing it, you are manipulating the subconscious into arriving at the right conclusion.
The way I read, I often miss details describing the character. Perhaps, because they are only told, my subconscious passes over them. I read at such a speed, I rely on my subconscious to tell me the story. It has never before ‘clicked’, that actually I need a paragraph in the broader context to tell me the character was scared. It does work both ways as it allows me to justify the speed I read at. In timing myself, I know I average approximately 23000 words per hour reading an ebook on my computer, and by very rough estimations, I read ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ by Alexandre Dumas at 20000 words per hour. If anyone knows their reading speed, please share. Another thought, I wonder if I can speed up by reading things that are properly typeset. We’ve been doing a lot of that for our reports for university this year.
Missing details doesn’t usually affect my reading, as I’m not really visually minded so I don’t form a visual image of the character. I have a clear idea, perhaps more of an understanding, of the character.
For those who don’t know him, the guy I linked to above is an author with a phd in physics. He can break down stuff into effective explanations really well. I think his stuff teaches how to get down to the basic rules of doing everything in a formulaic manner, but once the rules are mastered, you can learn where to break them. Just like school. In primary school, I was always told to change every single sentence that started with ‘And’ or ‘But’. But now I can do as I please .
Speaking of not being visually minded – I can’t formulate an image in my mind of anything, unless its done element by element. The effort is of such a magnitude, I can’t have more than 4-5 elements. An element may be just a line or a shape or a really complex image, but its got to be something I’ve seen before. I can’t formulate a scene, but I can look at any picture I’ve taken and remember it perfectly – for 90%+ of my 17000 photos (the 90% are those with something definite in them that my thought latches on to)! I can picture an image I’ve seen relatively easily, although I do notice my brain has picked out important elements – maps are easy as the points of interest and the roads are all I care about and my brain ignores the rest 
Feel free to comment. Or correct. I kick myself at it, but I like being corrected. I think there might even be an error in punctuation for the Grammar Nazi.
