The Quin-Zhee Shelter

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FROM THE BOUNDARY WATERS JOURNAL / WINTER 1987

keeping warm with snow

by C. Mark Sakry The Quin-Zhee Shelter

The temperature plunged. It seemed like the higher the sun climbed toward its mid-day summit, the colder it got. It is one of those peculiar things about January in the North. I had watched it kindle the eastern ridge at dawn: first, bursting above the treeline like a great red coal bestirred by the gentle fanning of an almost imperceptible morning breeze; then, rising slowly, slowly—with mounting brilliance—casting an orange wake across the purple-studded birch, where billions of buds blistered beneath the death-grip of winter; then fanning yellow; then white—a magnesium flare drifting skyward above the snow-struck lake—until, alas, at its zenith, diminished to a blazing dwarf that dazzled the winterscape with incredible brightness, yet seemed not able to warm even three human souls. Nor even my dog's. So cold.
    We had, nevertheless, emerged at dawn from our quin-zhee [kwahn'-chee] to greet the plum-hued twilight, to kindle a breakfast fire, and eat some peanut gruel before heading to our holes for splake.
    Fishing splake is one of the supreme pleasures of winter camping in the Boundary Waters. But there are more. Just watching the day unfold—in spite of bitter cold on hands and face while perched on a bucket in the open wind over a fishing hole (hot gruel in your gullet)—is pleasure enough. The silence. The beauty. The utter solitude.
    Winter in the boreal North.
    Then there are tracks. Tracks of wayward creatures you might find somewhat kindred to yourself, if only for being about on the ice-locked lake barrens as you are. There are signs of pine marten and grouse, the aimless meanderings of moose, and—of course—wolves, whose tracks somehow point to more purpose than those of moose.
    Wolves are the unspeakable enchantment of winter in the North. It is impossible to describe the spell—the chill racing pulse, the amplified thill—with which you are possessed the first time you experience the deep-woods chorus of wolves. Especially if it is shared with heartfelt comrades about the glow of a late evening fire. Unspeakable. Yes.
    All these things are reason enough to visit the Boundary Waters during Minnesota's finest season. But then … there is the quin-zhee.
    For the stalwart soul who aims to brave the bitter elements, and take a stab at raw winter living on the boreal range, the necessities for outdoor comfort are prescribed: high-calorie fuel for the human pot-burner, layered clothing and insulation to hold the hell-fire in. The like with which you had very best be familiar before challenging winter here, novice or not.
    But woe to the inexperienced who must consider the perils which befall the winter night.
    It stalks you fast. If you look, you will see the craters along the snowshoe trail behind you blacken like splake holes. This is a sign. Your ski tracks stream at your tails like smoldering wicks. Make camp. And when, at last, night springs outstretched across the long lake shadows, to paralyze the mute forest ahead … it's got you. It holds you. And it doesn't let you go … for many, many frozen dark hours. No way out.
    What to do?
   Imagine … the Athapascan, the Cree … the Ojibway hunter: fishing, hunting, and trapping far from his village, bundled in animal skins against the cold, accepting a life outdoors because there is no other way. His life is hard, survival a struggle. Yet he can come to know some comfort—away from the trails, away from the snare lines, away from the tundra-lake flats—inside what the Athapascan calls quin-zhee.
   He has watched the grouse and the snowshoe hare burrow deep inside snow when the air begins to bite the hands and face. He has heard tales of the distant Inuit, who builds his shelter with blocks of pukajaw—the firm packed snow of the wind-swept northern sea. He knows how his trail becomes firm and solid after his snowshoes have stirred the loose powder there—allowing him to check his snares without snowshoes a day or two later—; how the piles he has swept aside for his fire pit firm-up (so mysteriously), enough to sit on. One very cold night he burrows inside one of these piles close to his fire. He sleeps without tremor. In the morning he pulls himself from his burrow.
    It does not collapse.
    That night he sleeps there again. And the night after that. Until the fire has melted it partly away and his cave begins to sag. The hunter's shelter migrates farther and farther from his fire. When other hunters from the village visit his camp, the shelter is enlarged. He knows it is best to share body warmth. Before the hunters leave for their own camp, he has also shared his knowledge of the quin-zhee.
   Imagine … the hunter broods on his snow-bench near the fire. The wind whistles through the spruce, ruffling the thick fur pulled about him. A quaking aspen pops somewhere close by. Snow whisks down from above into the ring of protective light, frustrating his fire. He leans closer. Snowflakes sift through the opening at his neck, wetting his back. A hollow, deep-throated howl far away gives rise to somber recollection … memories of starvation and despair. He yearns for the warmth of his comrades. Pulling together his fur blanket, he retreats from the timber to his quin-zhee by the lake.
    Entering the pile on his knees through a thick skin flap over the door, he finds consolement. The sweet scent of spruce purges the phlegm and smoke from his nostrils. He spreads his skins across the boughs in the amber glow of his simple lamp—a cedar wick floating inside a pelvic bone of congealed animal fat—stuck into a small alcove carved out of the dome wall. Gently he smooths out his fur blanket, the tuft of his head knocking granules of snow down his neck from the hard ceiling. He cringes—slightly—then removes the heavy fur parka from his shoulders, knowing he would be too warm; then the icy outer skin of his mukluks. Sliding carefully beneath his blanket, sure to prevent the liberation of more granules from the crystal dome, he plunges his head into the soft parka he uses now for a pillow. The snow dome muffles every sound, every movement. The blizzard outside is forgotten, unheard. Peace. Silence. Warmth.
    The hunter gazes dreamily at the golden crevices and scrape marks an arrow's length from his face, made from the bone lamp he had used to dig out the pile. His breath lingers—in steamy plumes—amidst the scent of spruce. His eyes blink shut aganist the amber light as a single drop of melted snow annoints his forehead … until, at last, he lapses into a deep fitless sleep.
    So it is that we might learn a lesson from our solitary hunter and emulate his simple measure against the cold winter night. While it cannot be said that the quin-zhee was necessarily a way of life for him—there being no artifacts remaining from the melted snows of millennia past—the Athapascan, at least, have passed word down through the ages of its use in the North. It makes sense that others had figured it out, as well.
    Today's winter wayfarer can appreciate the undeniable sensibility of the quin-zhee for keeping warm-once the insulating properties of snow are realized. (I can personally attest to an interior temperature of 36 degrees F. above zero … when the temperature outside was 20 degrees F. below!) Tents, having virtually no insulating value, are good only for breaking wind, rain, and mosquitoes. My expedition-weight sleeping bag is great for an occasional cold night under the stars—and for emergency sleeping protection—but I find it unbearably warm inside a quinzhee. A three-season bag, with the all-essential closed-cell foam pad underneath, works just fine. I bring both bags. The quin-zhee, built right, is warm. My dog knows.
    So it occurred to me, at least, on this most unusual day in January when the sun rose high, and the temperature plummeted. I had been fishing splake all morning, shaking ice from my bobber more and more frequently as the day got on, catching nothing. Dog at my side—for a while. More action at the splake hole of my partner down from me. One fish. Two. Then a third. So my dog abandons me and answers the hooting of my companion across the bay. There they squatted over that hole, for the longest time, while I twittered and jigged and shook my bobber—to no avail. Getting colder. I wondered about my other companion far down shore out of sight, around the point. How was his luck? So cold.
    The sun struck with such intensity it blinded. My cheeks were numb; my beard frosted. I jiggled my bobber, plucking it from the ice waxing over my hole. Suddenly, down it plunged! I drew quickiy, setting the hook, whooping excitedly—then up, and up, and—there's the fish! Swirling up through three feet of ice, flashing lavender in the sun—there, almost out, and then—nothing. The hook was out. I watched in agony as the splake sifted tail-first like a dead leaf toward the deep—then dove right in after it,up to my armpit … a maneuver not unknown to most seasoned anglers of splake. Gone. Crap. So cold.
    And where is my dog in all the excitement? Nowhere to be seen. Traitor, now, to us all. Yet my partner barks some obscene cajolement from his station down the way. My arm is in pain, icing up fast. Haphazardly I gather my gear onto my sled and head into camp. By now my sleeve has frozen stiff. So where is my dog?
    The fire pit is dead. I forget about that. Better inside, where my sleeve will thaw. I scramble to the cave-hole on the bank, where we had knocked the snow downhill into a huge pile with snowshoes—fourteen feet in diameter, I had guessed. Stretching my frozen sleeve in front of me, I reach up toward the womb of the shelter. The entryway is slippery and steep, like an otter slide. The floor level is a foot-or-two above the top of the entryway opening, to trap the bubble of warmer air inside. Overkill, I thought. A couple inches would normally do. That's the trade-off when you don't build these things on flat ice. Hooking my stiff parka sleeve over the top of the slide, I pull myself up and in. The sunlight illuminates the interior of the dome through eight-inch wall—cool, cool blue. Something rustles near my head. There is my dog, head poised over his crossed front paws, blinking at me from a crumpled pile of sleeping bags as if to say, "Oh, it's you … something you want?" Looking real comfy in the half-lit dome.
    "Sorry to disturb you, old boy," I say smiling, then reach to light a candle in one of the alcoves in the wall. My head catches one of the twigs we had stuck through the dome from the outside to mark the proper wall thickness when we scraped it out. Granules of ice find their way down the back of my parka. Off it comes—gently. Turning over onto my sleeping bag, I reach down for my boots, knees up. They come off, too. My dog watches me from his front paws. I go click-click through my teeth, and he nearly knocks me off my elbows. I feint quickly, diving into my sleeping bag, zipping it up to my chin. The brute sidles me, his full weight against the frozen arm—warming it, warming it nicely. Good dog.
    Gazing upward through the steamy amber light of the quin-zhee, my eyes trace the smooth, arcing impressions I had made with a tin plate the day before. My rain suit had kept me from getting soaked; how miserable it must have been to carve-out a quin-zhee wearing animal skins. My breath rises toward the ceiling. I ponder the sublime comfort of such an unseemly abode in the middle of the wilderness. Its structural unity. Its ambient grace. The golden glow. Yet so primitive ….
    Amidst such thoughts—I vaguely recollect—an icy drip annoints my forehead from the ceiling … before I lapse into a deep, fitless sleep.

SIDEBAR:
Building a Quin-Zhee in the BWCAW