Paradise Below Zero

The Classic Guide to Winter Camping

2000
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Author:

Calvin Rutstrum
Illustrations by Les C. Kouba

Indispensable advice on enjoying the great outdoors in winter.

With the public’s growing interest in outdoor adventure and in simple pastimes, winter wilderness camping has again become an exhilarating alternative to sheltered urban life. Originally published in 1968, this classic guide for cold-weather enthusiasts by renowned wilderness expert Calvin Rutstrum is available again, now in an easy-to-pack paperback edition.

“Written long before the invention of Polartec and first published in 1968, Rutstrum writes about picking the proper mittens and footwear for sub-zero temperatures, running a dogsled team and treating snow blindness as well as philosophical musings contrasting modern city dwellers’ fear of the cold and snow with native North Americans’ zeal for winter.” Minneapolis Star Tribune

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With the public’s growing interest in outdoor adventure and in simple pastimes, winter wilderness camping has again become an exhilarating alternative to sheltered urban life. Originally published in 1968, this classic guide for cold-weather enthusiasts by renowned wilderness expert Calvin Rutstrum is available again, now in an easy-to-pack paperback edition.

Paradise Below Zero provides essential information on wilderness adventure in subzero temperatures. Readers benefit from Rutstrum’s knowledge of winter clothing, from choosing the proper mittens to selecting the indispensable footwear; traveling methods, including running a dogsled team; and emergency techniques, such as treating snow blindness and caring for someone who has broken through the ice. Rutstrum affectionately reflects on winter life and enthusiastically gives examples of how native peoples of the north and trappers have fought the cold. This colorful book will be of interest to anyone who has ever survived a northern winter.

Calvin Rutstrum (1895-1982) was one of the best-known outdoorsmen of his generation and the author of many books, including The Wilderness Route Finder, North American Canoe Country, and The New Way of the Wilderness, all published in paperback by the University of Minnesota Press.

Leslie Kouba also illustrated many of the works of Sigurd Olson.

“Written long before the invention of Polartec and first published in 1968, Rutstrum writes about picking the proper mittens and footwear for sub-zero temperatures, running a dogsled team and treating snow blindness as well as philosophical musings contrasting modern city dwellers’ fear of the cold and snow with native North Americans’ zeal for winter.” Minneapolis Star Tribune

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