I once built my friend a legendary surprise birthday quinzee in the middle of the forest complete with a slide down entrance, ice votive holders and a bed of hemlock boughs and animal furs. I carefully constructed a fire outside that would blaze up as we approached with just one touch of a match and carried a thermos of hot spiced cider. Come to think of it, I even drove an hour to the Seneca Antiques Mall to buy an old-fashioned cauldron on chains I had spied there, but it was already gone. I used to live by this ideal which I called the re-enchantment of everyday life, the title of a book I’ve never read. Considering the complete dearth of spirit in our culture, I applied this mostly to seducing guys.
I’m the queen of quinzees. I’ve only slept in one, at the top of Smugglers Notch in Vermont. Tried to sleep in a second over at Wright Rocks, but it was negative degrees and we were like. “Dude, this sucks. Want to get some waffles at Perkins?”
“Yeah let’s jet.”
Despite the fact that I don’t really go in them after the sweaty labor of shoveling the snow into a pile and the ice-in-your-face, bruises-on-your-knees work of hollowing them out, I just can’t stop building! During the big surprise snowstorm in Portland we were able to knock out this child-sized quinzee in about two hours:
