Went to Nanda & Barry's in Castelsagrat last night for a light supper with friends. There I met a Cuban banker called Alfonso who was all worried about the current tropical storm Isaac which could be heading for his house in Florida. He said they survived two hurricanes in ten days a few years back and it was terrifying.
There was also a very nice French woman called Danielle who seem to have lived all over the world and had now come back to her home. When she was young, she lived for seven years in the North-West of Canada in an area called the Yukon, right up beside Alaska. She told us how she had gone snowmobile trekking across a frozen lake and fallen through the ice. The rest of the group had to form a human chain to drag her out, then they immediately made a huge bonfire and stripped her naked to dry off her snow-suit. In these conditions, if you are not dry, you are dead.
It can get down to -50C and that is when you find out what 'square wheels' are. A car's tyres aren't round: they are always flat where they touch the ground. Overnight, the wheels get so cold they become solid and when you try to drive, the wheels feel like they are square. She said you just give up and call a taxi.
I guess she ran some kind of restaurant because she talked about how she did a Canadian version of a famous local French stew with beans using moose sausage and porcupine fat cooked for 72 hours. Mmmm .... sounds delicious? She thought so.
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