Monday, November 17, 2003. 17 degrees below zero @ 9AM.

One night last week, Stephanie and I were in bed, but not yet asleep. The whole house was quiet when we heard a deliberate sounding crash somewhere in the living room. It sounded like something, or someone, fell. I jumped up well armed and went to investigate. I crept around the house finding nothing and looked out the windows seeing nothing before going uneasily back to bed. Saturday night late, after our day playing in the snow, we both heard that same sound, like somebody dropped a heavy bag of books on the living room floor. I jumped up once again to investigate, but found nothing. This morning, at work, Samson, an older man and Alaska Native who works in our office, stopped by my office and asked if I'd heard my house crack yet. As soon as he asked, I put it together and figured that must have been the sound we heard. The freezing ground was shifting and causing the house to move and crack along with it. We are also told that if we are ever out in the woods camping at sixty-below (yeah, right) we can hear the trees snap loudly as the sap freezes and expands deep inside.