I’m not trying to spoil the book for anyone, but I do figure that not a lot of people are running out to buy it because of my having mentioned it. So I wanted to share my favorite part of “Winterdance”: at one point, Paulsen saw another Iditarod musher sitting, his dogs parked, looking down at the scene below the rise at a point where Paulsen couldn’t see. The other guy motioned him over, saying, You’ve got to see this!
Down below them was a frozen lake and four buffalo. Two were out on the ice, trying to rise awkwardly to their feet. The other two were on the side. One backed up the embankment, carefully, and then with tail held high, went running forward and hit the ice with its front legs apart just so, so that it went twirling around and around on the ice. It got up, legs slipping out from under it, shakily and with the obvious buffalo equivalent of a grin, while the next one backed up the embankment to come do the same thing. Run, hit the ice, spin like a top–next!
Worth the price of the book just to read that part. Go buffalo. And cheers to the men who took the time away from the race to stop and see it.