PERMAFROST - The Town
PERMAFROST is an unincorporated (and entirely concocted) town
on the logging road, off the gravel road, off the county road
from Big Falls, in Koochiching County, Minnesota, on Dinner Creek.
It went into the unusually hard winter of 1887-88, and never came
out. Oh, it wasn't frozen in time, just frozen.
There is what is called a "micro-climate" around Permafrost.
About two square miles around the town and a lake are below freezing
all year round. It doesn't get bitter cold even in winter, or
warm even in summer. Just freezing, all the time. It's no wonder
Permafrost is the ice fishingest place around.
You'll meet Finch Shelmerdine, who tells the story, and
her parents, Phyl and Elsie, who run the Frozen Filet Cafe.
Finch has just started college way down in St. Paul.
You'll hear from Bux Hootkins, who lives in Permafrost,
but has a place in Texas that he visits in the summer, because
he likes the extremes. He and Bertie Two Shoes have been
building on their fishing shack out on the lake for as long as
anyone can remember. Currently they're working on the catwalk,
up there on the third floor. It's for the cats.
Petey Pie is a musician and has a little FM radio transmitter
in his trailer home. He is both entertainment and communications
for Permafrost.
There's Bob Draft, unofficial town mayor and chief booster
of the lake petition. And you'll find Melody McCleod, Permafrost's
mail carrier and town gossip. (In a town this small there isn't
always enough to gossip about, so sometimes she just makes it
up.)
And there is Les Decksia, town historian, who claims he
remembers the "year the giant snowflakes fell" and the threat
of a thaw back in '69.
Edna Johnsen-Johnson lives in a house straddling the Permafrost
micro-climate. Her kitchen's in winter, and her bedroom is in
summer.
And they are all a little nuts to live in a remote and frozen
place like Permafrost, MN.
