Arrival of New Hampshire Winter : Season Means Fun and Games--and a Lot of Hard Work

You will detect the approach of Leon Sharp as a harbinger of winter long before you catch sight of him trudging through the New England woods.

You will hear the clang of his wedges and sledges, wince at the bite of his ax blade as it drops stands of ash and oak and the whine of his power saw slicing the fallen hardwood trees into measured stacks of firewood.

But the real muscle of Sharp’s operation is his silent partner, a plodding workhorse whose specialty is dragging 20-foot logs out of the forest to his truck which he left parked on the shore of Newfound Lake in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Summer Folks Slip Away

The brilliant days of autumn are giving way to the slate gray days of winter after the summer people have slipped away to the south, leaving the lakes and woods to the likes of men like Leon Sharp.

The horse stands by stoically, his head lowered into the wind, waiting to be harnessed by Sharp.

Unlike the tractor operators who tear up the forest floor with their raucous machines, Sharp’s operation is as silent as the hairy hooves of the horse clopping through the woods, dragging the heaving logging chain behind him. The animal leans into the harness, vapor streaming from his flaring nostrils as he responds to the commands from Sharp.

A Modern Paul Bunyan

The woodsman is a modern Paul Bunyan who cuts timber for his own use and sells some of it to his neighbors who use the slow burning hardwood as their primary source of heat during the cold New England winters and in the making of maple syrup in the spring.

Loggers like Sharp truck their horses to the woods in horse trailers, then guide them in and out of the forest, both by slapping them on the rump with the reins and by making sharp clucking sounds that the horse seems to understand.

Lengths of chain are used to skid the logs on the frozen ground, moving the felled trees as close as possible to the trucks where Sharp and his helper jockey them into manageable sizes and positions with pike poles and power saws.

Sharp lives in a snug log cabin in Alexandria a few miles from Bristol. He is a powerful-looking man of about 50 years with a thick thatch of gray, making it hard to tell his hair from the snow.

With his strong arms, tapered torso, ruddy complexion and down-East twang, it would be hard to mistake him for anyone other than a New England outdoorsman.

He is just as much at home in his cabin as he is in a “bob house,” or fishing shanty, on a lake.

I have lived in warm and temperate climates most of my life, so during a visit to Bristol I was somewhat apprehensive about the ups and downs of the daily temperatures, particularly the downs where below-zero readings are not unusual.

Dressing by Thermometer

You dress by thermometer, not by Esquire. You no sooner wake up in the morning than you break for the nearest gauge and find out what you can expect from the day ahead and get some idea of how to cope with it.

There are days when a light jacket will do the job. And then there are those 10-below days when nothing will do except a heavy parka, a down-filled vest, a wool shirt, ear muffs, muffler and boots.

But locals, young and old, handle it all quite well, compensating for lowering temperatures by piling more clothing on themselves and more logs on the fire.

New Englanders depend on their thermometer and swear on it like a Bible. Every house has several thermometers, some inside, some outside. Many of them are positioned so they can be read without going outside.

There are times when you may look like an overstuffed ragbag when you venture out, but you will have the last laugh all the way home if the wind or snow should sneak up on you or if the weatherman makes a bad call.

On the 10-below day early this year in Bristol, I went cross-country skiing without paying proper attention to the falling thermometer when I started out.

I had made the mistake of venturing out without consulting the thermometer at the door or listening to a radio or TV weather forecaster. As a result I dressed for a two-sweater day instead of a three-sweater day, but lost no time striking for the house.

Rigid Laundry

Despite the 10-below temperature that day, I heard of no one undergoing unusual hardship in New Hampshire. As a matter of fact, I did see numerous housewives busily hanging wash on their clotheslines and then going back outside later to retrieve their rigid laundry.

That same cold day, rosy-cheeked youngsters were out with their sleds on the hills while others skated or played hockey in the town rink outside the school, seemingly never too cold to play.

Townspeople with business in the post office appeared to tarry there longer that day, probably taking advantage of heat supplied by the U.S. government while they gossiped with neighbors.

On the lake, men and boys were patiently tuning up their snowmobiles while others readied their bob houses for the ice-fishing season.

Then there were others who took their chances to be the first on the lake ice with skates, ice boats and cross-country skis, hoping for the best.

With a forecast of heavy snow, a platoon of county road plows could be heard snarling through the night manicuring the main roads and salting down others that were quick to freeze up. By morning it was hard to see the other side of the road. Individual householders used small motor-driven plows to keep their driveways open to the county road.

Unbelievable Silence

Outside the house the silence was unbelievable except for the occasional rumble of a snowmobile or a truck, and the shrill voices of children playing in the snow now that winter had arrived at long last.

The winter ritual of towing the bob houses out onto the lake had begun. Once the shanties had been anchored at favorite fishing spots, augers drilled the fishing holes in the ice and fishing poles were rigged.

Each fisherman stocks his own digs to suit himself and had seen to his own creature comforts, including portable heaters, portable TV sets, food and coffee, and perhaps even a few six-packs of beer strung together and left to dangle in the frigid waters of the lake.

But bob fishing is not without its risks. While I was in New Hampshire early this year, a pickup truck towing one of the shanties out onto the lake broke through the ice and killed one of the two men aboard.

Again winter will soon be setting into the mountains of New England. Telltale columns of gray and black smoke will be belching from every chimney in rural New Hampshire.

Cords of firewood are being stacked beside every home within easy reach of the front door.

Residents of the area depend on men like Leon Sharp to make their winters bearable for cooking and comfort, and for the maple syrup makings in the late winter and early spring.

Relying on Loggers

By now householders have figured what their logging needs will be and, as usual, haggle over the price. New England loggers, their teams and their tractors move into the wooded area of the countryside to size up stands of timber to see which would be suitable for harvesting.

Youngsters face the winter with mixed feelings but always keeping a wary eye on storms that often sweep down from the mountains.

Now in the approaching winter when the days are growing short the children go to bed with feelings of anticipation, wondering what the night will bring, giving a final look at the sky for stars or clouds as they burrow into the bedclothes after they have checked a final reading of the thermometer.

Excited chatter can be heard coming from other parts of the house as their folks talk about the weather.

Awaiting First Snowfall

The grayness of the dawn creeps into the bedrooms and somehow prods the children awake. One day soon, everyone will see for himself that the first snowfall has finally arrived. The children will hope it is enough to keep them out of school and out on the hockey rink.

They will see the snow pile high on the window sills, icicles draped from the eaves, windows sealed with frost that appears to lock everyone into the first grip of winter.

Children of all ages will clomp out of the house and into the barns and out buildings to uncover treasures they had stashed at the end of last winter--sleds, skates, skis, snowmobiles, ice boats and splintered hockey sticks endlessly patched with tape.

But there is more than fun and games to winter’s first snowfall. It means an increase in chores. The snowfall that zaps everyone when they slept also leaves them with extra chores. Driveways have to be cleared down to the country roads, plus the usual daily chores such as wood to be cut and split and replenished as it dwindles.

And finally, in the cold clear air of New Hampshire comes the unmistakable sound of winter announced by Leon Sharp, the plodding of his horse and the ringing of his logging chains.