Have you read The Long Winter lately? Throughout the book, the Ingalls family is cooped up in their home, waiting for the winter to end and the blizzards to stop blowing. Finally, one night, something exciting happens.
"Sometime in the night Laura heard the wind. It was still blowing furiously but there were no voices, no howls or shrieks in it. And with it there was another sound, a tiny, uncertain, liquid sound that she could not understand.
She listened as hard as she could. She uncovered her ear to listen and the cold did not bite her cheek. The dark was warmer. She put out her hand and felt only a coolness. The little sound that she heard was a trickling of water-drops. The eaves were dripping. Then she knew.
She sprang up in bed and called aloud, 'Pa! Pa! The Chinook is blowing!'
'I hear it, Laura,' Pa answered from the other room. 'Spring has come. Go back to sleep.' "
The next morning, "Laura said nothing; she was too happy. She could hardly believe that the winter was gone that spring had come. When Pa asked her why she was so silent, she answered soberly, 'I said it all in the night.'
'I should say you did! Waking us all from a sound sleep to tell us the wind was blowing!' Pa teased her. 'As if the wind hadn't blown for months!'
'I said the Chinook,' Laura reminded him. 'That makes all the difference.' "
-The Long Winter, chapter 30 "It Can't Beat Us" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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| This graphic explains the origins of the warm Chinook wind. You can read a scientific explanation on Wikipedia, linked below. |
Essentially, for those of you who don't know (I had to look this up), a Chinook wind is a warm wind that can melt winter snow in no time flat. Chinook winds occur in the Pacific Northwest and interior west of North America - including South Dakota, where the Ingalls family was living at the time.
I found these entertaining folktales about the Chinook from Alberta, Canada on the Wikipedia page.
- A man rode his horse to church, only to find just the steeple sticking out of the snow. So, he tied his horse to the steeple with the other horses, and went down the snow tunnel to attend services. When everybody emerged from the church, they found a Chinook had melted all of the snow, and their horses were now all dangling from the church steeple.
- A man was riding his sleigh to town when a Chinook overcame him. He kept pace with the wind, and while the horses were running belly-deep in snow, the sleigh rails were running in mud up to the buckboard. The cow tied behind was kicking up dust.
- A man and his wife were out during a Chinook. The wife was heavily dressed and the man was wearing summer clothes. When the couple had returned home, the man had frostbite, and the woman had heatstroke.
Does the Chinook blow in your part of the country? Has spring come to you yet? Wherever you are, spring is on its way! Well, unless you're in the southern hemisphere, I guess. Then fall is coming. But the seasons are still changing. Okay. I'm overthinking this. I'll stop rambling now and let you get on with your day.
LHCO brings you historical trivia for your greater "Little House" enjoyment three times a week. Come back soon, and thanks for reading!
Elizabeth
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