It’s 5:45 in the morning and 37 degrees below zero when I open the front door to go to work. A wave of cold air pours into the apartment, washing down the hallway and biting at my skin. I step forward to a row of cars in the parking lot, their colors softened by the morning dark. Cables hang from underneath their hoods, plugged into electrical sockets propped up from the ground. Without the constant whir of electric heat, the engines wouldn’t be able to start.
It’s late March and the sun hangs higher in the sky with each passing day, but it’s still winter and today’s a reminder.
I don’t have a car, I bike year-round. The morning commute lets me prepare for the day ahead and at the end of my shift, any stress dissolves into the pedals, disappearing beneath my feet. Most evenings I take the long way home, winding down the open roads.
I’ve geared up as best I can with heavy, hand-knit wool socks, thick boots, woolen long underwear, a flannel shirt fully buttoned and pinching against my neck, and a down coat. After the first few minutes my body adjusts, the bite of the cold only stinging my hands and face. Still, this morning is an unwelcome awakening.
My bike is navy blue, with bright green hand grips and reflective taping on the front forks, but in this dark, like everything else, it just looks gray. I ride out of the parking lot and into the empty street. Some homes, the lucky ones, still have smoke climbing from their chimney stacks. They’ll wake to a warm home. The smell of burning spruce wafts in the air. It’s the suburbs, but it’s still the North, and there’s nothing to break the morning silence.
I ride my bike down the middle of the street, keeping my tires between the yellow median lines. No one is around to tell me otherwise. By the time I reach the first stop sign, about a half-mile down the road, my beard is coated with a layer of frost.
When the temperature falls past 15 below, biking becomes difficult beyond the obvious cold. Unless you’ve winterized your bike with a ceramic grease, the bearings freeze up, and even riding downhill requires pedal strokes. The ride to work is five hilly miles, and takes 30 minutes on a good day. So far, today isn’t a good day.
I work as a mailman. Delivering to the communities carved into the woods along the Alaska Highway, in the southern end of Canada’s Yukon Territory.
It’s 6:34 a.m. when I arrive at the plant; I know this because the car rental agency across the street has an illuminated sign that flashes the temperature and then the time. Minus 32, 6:34 a.m., the numbers, fiery red, scroll and shift across the screen, piercing the morning dark. A white light pours out from the bay doors at the plant, trucks sit outside, tailgates open, the night crew inside, climbing over parcels. There’s a single gray locker beside my desk. I hang up my coat and helmet, which are now frosted with ice that drips onto the floor, and grab the first sleeve of mail.
Today’s a heavy day; there are four sleeves of letters, seven crates of oversized mail, and a cage overflowing with parcels. I spend the first few hours of every day sorting letters and packages by their neighborhoods.
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