How many readers of this journal consider winter’s short days, snow mounds, icy paths, piercing winds, and polar air as hazardous inconveniences, making for an annual ordeal alleviated only by tropical vacation and spring’s arrival? In his remarkable book, Wickman identifies this altogether negative attitude as a deeply ingrained tendency—what he ingeniously calls a “vernal bias”—of settled agricultural societies (13). The preference for planting and harvesting seasons is so pervasive, Wickman contends, that even scholars interested in the environmental history and political ecology of places with long winters have largely failed to appreciate the variety and complexity of cultural approaches to living through the coldest months of the year. As a result, they have underestimated “the many worlds that cold created,” none more so than the dynamic winter cultures of Native communities (1). By focusing on the interface between indigenous nations and European colonists in northeastern North America in terms...

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