Cabin Fever: Winter's Chilling Affliction

0:00In the harsh winters of Northern Canada and Alaska, trappers like Eric Munster-Johm faced extreme cold that kept wildlife hidden and made checking. Traps pointless. Folks stayed indoors more, fixing gear, drying meat, and chopping wood, but idle time bred restlessness. That restlessness has a name, cabin fever. Linguist Russell Tabard defined it in his 1991 dictionary as a winter psychological depression from feeling trapped by cold, snow, darkness, and isolation. It hits whether you're alone or stuck with others. People in the north have described it vividly. Artist Claire Fahess recalled the winter of 1963 when temperatures dropped to 50 below zero in Fairbanks, leaving her with that. Cooped up uneasy sensation. Earlier terms like bleak captured similar chills as in poet Robert Services' work evoking icy sunless gloom under frozen pines. Cabin fever remains a timeless affliction for anyone enduring long, confining winters far

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