In 1991, I was on a storytelling trip in Labrador. My son, Andrew, was with me. In Goose Bay we stayed with Ali and Kate Lucas, whose dad was a Canadian Forces pilot. Andrew liked jet planes, and I thought “Wow! I bet I am going to get a good jet plane story.”
One afternoon we sent for a walk on a snowmobile trail. Andrew and I did not know that the snow in the woods was very, very deep. Andrew thought it would be fun to jump off the trail, and he went way down into the snow. He loved it. Ali and Kate jumped in after him. They did not go that far down into the snow, but Kate got her foot stuck, so I went to help. I did not know that in some places the snow was covering whole pine trees and the trees made an empty place under the snow. So when I walked off the trial I fell through, way, way, way over my head. It took me a long time to climb back up, and Kate was still stuck! We finally got her out, but her boots were still at the bottom of the hole. Since I was already wet, I went head-first in the snow with my feet sticking out, I started thinking of a story called “Deep Snow.” So this is my only story that started while I was upside-down in the snow.
