Dead of Winter: Plants' version of Sleep

The term, “Dead of Winter” sounds negative, doesn’t it?  Maybe even dire?

How about the synonym, Fall, for Autumn?

We are not going anywhere!

Actually, the cold season is as necessary and beneficial to plants as nightly sleep is to humans.  It is a period of rest and rejuvenation. Metabolic shifts in both plants and animals during this rest phase reduce the needs for energy and food, protect cell structure and health in several ways, and prepare us both for the next day or season.

I have studied permaculture, the chemical properties of medicinal plants, and basic botany.  But until I started writing this article about animal sleep and plant dormancy, I did not realize how much animals and plants have in common.  

HORMONAL IMPACTS

Did you know that plants have hormones?  Yes.  Just as human growth and sleep periods are managed by hormones, plant growth and dormancy are similarly regulated.

For humans, melatonin is triggered by darkness and we tend to sleep better in a temperature cooler than the day.  Because it is an anti-oxidant, melatonin helps with cellular repair, reduces inflammation, and facilitates DNA maintenance.   It stimulates our immune system, especially by boosting white blood cell count.  No wonder a good night’s sleep is important to health!

Harvesting sap for the nutrients.

Similarly, in plants, when the hours of daylight decrease, temperatures drop and the plants receive less water, abscisic acid triggers several seasonal changes that protect the plants.  Its most obvious effect is that deciduous trees and plants shed their leaves in autumn.  This relieves the energy engaged during the summer to photosynthesize for growth because there is less light available.  

A less obvious effect is that perennial plants shut their stomata to slow transpiration in response to abscisic acid. This means that less water moves through the plant, and the cells shrink.  Otherwise, fully saturated cells would freeze, expand, and burst.  It also prevents seeds from germinating until temperature and light increase. Abscisic acid allows plants to rest after a vigorous growing season.    

When deciduous trees, plants, and larches (the only conifer that sheds its needles) drop their leaves (and needles), they blanket the ground around their trunks with plant material.  This forms a welcome, shallow, insulating layer that has the additional benefit of degrading under the winter snow to enrich the soil.   This is why raking up leaves in fall is a make-work project that does not need to be done.  In fact, many organic gardeners ask friends for the leaves they choose to rake up so the gardeners can mulch their perennials and gardens.

Just as sleep helps us fight inflammation and cellular damage, winter cold causes weeds and pests to die or go dormant for a season, reducing those stresses on plants.

Obviously, nutritional needs decline during mammalian sleep as well as plant dormancy.  This is because our metabolisms slow down: we do not need to expend as much energy, so we require less fuel.  Hibernating bears, for example, can shed 1/3 of their weight during hibernation as they live off their fat stores.  Similarly, plants need no water or fertilizer during the winter.

 

SNOW 

Readers who live in consistently warm weather may not think of snow as an insulator, but it certainly is.  The crystalline form of snow forms air pockets. Envision a snow bank as structured like insulating panels of polystyrene foam.  At a temperature of 32∞F, this bank protects the roots and lower trunk of perennial plants and trees from temperatures that plummet far below that threshold.  Where I live, in Alaska, at USDA zone 3b, winters always drop to 20-30∞– below 0, and occasionally, lower still.  Those plants certainly benefit from snow’s 50∞ degree protection! It is common for people to shovel snow toward their buildings under the eaves, to protect the plant roots along the building and to form a snow berm “wall” to keep the cold wind from whipping under an elevated home.

Snow everywhere

 Most young trees, like willow, birch, and alder, are so flexible and whippy that they bow down to the ground under the snow weight, thus being totally insulated, like a babe in swaddling clothes.  As these trees age, they get stouter, with thicker bark, and are better able to withstand the brutal cold winters.  

Thus, snow is for plants what a mound of quilts and comforters is to me. I, too, sleep in a cool room, with a cold nose but warmth below.  

Without snow, or above it, vertical frost cracks can form in trees.  They sound like gun shots!  We hear a few every winter.  Southern and western facing tree trunks warm during the day.  At night, the temperature plummets.  The warm (exterior) bark shrinks, but the inner, cool center does not, so the bark on the warm side and the wood right below it crack… loudly!  This seems to be especially evident in older trees rather than young ones. 

 

GERMINATION

Just as many animals, like moose and deer, mate in autumn to bear young in early spring, a number of cold weather plants can actually be planted in the fall, before soil freezes, in order to take advantage of early spring thaw, leafing out through shallow snow.  Another set of plant hormones, called gibberellins, triggers the temperature cue for germination, which varies. Among leafy plants, spinach and lettuce are two that can sprout very early.  Root vegetables like garlic, onion, beets, are well acclimated to autumn planting for early spring leafing.  In my very snowy climate, however, many of these fall- planted seeds can rot in  the snow melt.  So, I often winter-sow these seeds in containers and leave them outside all winter, putting them in a sunny spot in February/March for transplantation when the snow recedes and the gardens dry up a bit. Most plants, though, germinate at higher temperatures.

  

TRICKY WEATHER

Just as people can wake up in the middle of the night due to some sound or dream, and start their day at, say, 3 am, only to crash early the next day, so, too, plants can inopportunely “awaken”.   An unexpected warmth spell (up here, perhaps caused by a strong Chinook weather system that can raise the temperature by a huge margin) can trigger spring behaviors.  Leaves sprout, flowers form, only to be killed by the next dash of low temperatures.  The vicissitudes of weather are particularly detrimental to domesticated plants.  Local wild ones have had more generations to adapt.  

Recognizing these similarities between humans and plants gives me greater sense of affinity with them.  Although our deep snows and cold temperatures can challenge me, I now view them as beneficial to the boreal forest that surrounds me.  Maybe in addition to familial terms like Mother Nature, I will start thinking of additional relationships, like Brother Tree and Sister Flower. 

 

Author:  Laura Emerson lives off-grid with her husband in the Alaska bush – population 4 – a 20 minute flight from the nearest road.  Curious about such a life?  See Log Cabin Reflections on Amazon for $5. Lots of pictures and anecdotes, arranged by season.  

Advice for a Winter Camping Trip on the Alcan Highway

Before we planned our winter RV trip up and down the Alcan Highway, we availed ourselves of blogs and videos of other travelers.  They were very helpful in many ways.  HOWEVER, since there are so few detailed reports of travel in the winter, I hope that our experience (which was very positive) will help fill that void.

Based on our experience, I have penned three related articles.

This article provides comments about weather, road conditions, fuel, communications, supplies, and prices.  A second article outlines our itinerary and describes where we camped.  A third focuses on the travel aspects of bringing a dog in an RV across national borders and for 65 days.

I welcome your comments beneath this blog or write me through my email, listed on my home page.

WEATHER:

Temperatures:

The lowest daytime temperature (on March 1) was 0 F in the Copper River Valley.  Temperatures were below freezing both night and day except for a balmy 42 F at Liard Hot Springs in Yukon (with snowy berms around each campsite).     Heading north in late April, we awoke to temperatures 28 – 34 F many mornings.  Temperatures rose quickly on sunny days, to a high of 61 near Chetwynd, but most days were overcast and topped out in the mid- 40’s.

Snow:

This was a low snow year for Southcentral Alaska (the latitude of Anchorage) as well as Yukon Territory, British Columbia, and Alberta, Canada, through which we traveled to cross the border into Montana, USA.  For people not from this part of the country, though, let me clarify.  We routinely have 4 – 8 feet of snow on the ground in my part of Alaska and Yukon.  On this trip, where I walked into the snow off the road, it was 18 inches to 2 feet deep. Snow berms around parking lots were 3 – 4 feet high.  Naturally, both were higher and deeper in the higher elevations and receded to brown grass with patches of snow at the southern end of the route, around Dawson Creek and Ft Nelson.   

We did not encounter any icy conditions the whole way.  We did drive through short blizzards in steep terrain near Banff (beyond the Alcan).

Road condition:  We drove with studded tires.  The Alcan was well plowed, including frequent rest stops with dumpsters (sometimes locked) and pit toilet bathrooms (often locked) for the season.  Yukon Territory had the most frequent of these rest stops, often occupied by long haul trucks.  Roads were very good EXCEPT for two hours of infamous washboard conditions on either side of the Alaska/Canada border, but primarily on the Canadian side.  GO SLOW!  Here the road is laid over bogs that were considered the most challenging section of construction back in 1942 when soldiers worked in arduous conditions for 10 months to build this road.    (I definitely recommend that anyone read the history of this engineering feat.)

WILD ANIMALS

One of the treats of driving the Alcan is seeing lots of wild mammals.  We saw wild horses, bears (in late April), and lots of bison, sheep, and caribou on either side of the road.  We saw one dead bison, but no road kill and no vehicular accidents with animals.   A logical piece of advice is to avoid driving this dark, remote, and animal-traveled highway at night.

SEASONAL DIFFERENCES = CLOSED CAMPGROUNDS: 

The winter season makes a big difference in where you can spend the night. MOST campgrounds, public and private, are CLOSED from sometime in October to sometime in May.  Of these, some are gated and locked.  Others may be accessed by long, narrow dirt roads that are simply not plowed and therefore inappropriately deep for campers and camping vehicles.  This means that travelers should be prepared to dry camp (not plug into someone else’s power supply) in winter.  Campgrounds and day use parking lots that service winter sports, like cross country skiing and snowmachining, were more likely than others to be open and plowed.  In April, campgrounds that offer boat docks tend to open earlier (‘as soon as the snow is gone”) than those that do not.

Similarly, many of the highway adjacent motels are closed for the season (usually Oct – May), and with them, their gas pumps, water hoses, and dump sites.  We passed a lot of derelict motels and lodges that were moldering away.  Call ahead if you wish to sleep in a commercial bed. Even in northern cities with winter-open RV camps, dumpsites and water hoses were usually turned off until the temperatures warm up.  This means that travelers should be prepared to drive hundreds of km (through Canada) without outside sources of gasoline or water.  I think the longest stretch we noticed was 300 km.  We traveled with an extra 5 gallons of diesel and 10 gallons of water (We did not fill our camper’s water tank until the coldest temperatures were above 25 degrees.).   Note:  Milepost may identify motels, restaurants, and gas stations that DO EXIST but are NOT OPEN half the year.

FUEL PRICES:

Fuel prices vary dramatically.  Canada charged MUCH more for gas and diesel than the USA.  Probably 3x as much.  The most we paid along the Alcan was C$2.09 per LITER at Pink Mountain.  US prices close to the border were about $3.60/GALLON.  Chevron was routinely the MOST expensive in any locale. In our part of Alaska, the price of Diesel was $3.22/gallon.  In parts of Montana and Wyoming, $2.99/gallon during that same trip.  California charged over $6/gal.

MPG:  Hauling a camper takes a toll on mileage, naturally.  We averaged 12 mpg with the camper vs. 17 mpg without it. 

The currency exchange rate benefited Americans, which took some of the sting out of their diesel price.  Some supermarket, wine, and beer prices were lower than the US.  Noticeably: eggs were half the price.  I guess they did not cull their flocks during the USA’s reaction to bird flu. 

I highly recommend loading the apps Gas Buddy and/or Gas Guru before departure.  With them, you can search for gas prices by your current location or for a target location.  Recent price confirmation is time stamped.  Prices routinely vary by up to $.50/gallon in the US and less per liter in Canada, within the space of 2 miles on/off the highway.  For a 10,000 mile trip, these savings added up to expenditures on purchases we valued more.   

Propane prices varied widely, too.  The most common price range was $21 – 28/20 lb tank.  To help the propane last longer, turn your water heater on only in advance of doing dishes or taking a shower and then turn it off right afterward.  For us, this took about 20 minutes.

COMMUNICATIONS:

Telephony and Internet: Because of the remoteness and the mountainous terrain as well as the absence of open visitors’ centers and motels, internet and telephone may not work for hours at a time or at your selected stop for the night. We had Verizon as our telephone provider and we newly bought Starlink for this trip.  Both worked some of the time.  Neither was consistently reliable along this route.  

Starlink:  We had a tough time getting Starlink up and going because of limited technical support by the company.  BE PATIENT.  We thought that by plugging in and connecting through WiFI, all would work immediately.  No.  It sometimes took up to 30 minutes for the satellite to sync.  Starlink is not kidding when it says you need access to open skies.  Trees impede service.  We learned to move farther away from the trees and camper.  Some people report that Starlink does not work in a moving vehicle.  We disagree.  Over the course of thousands of active driving miles, Starlink worked, sometimes.  We have connected Starlink to our cigarette lighter in the truck and left it pointing out the window all night long.  It sips power and did not drain the battery.  In long stretches of Nevada desert, we pointed the antenna out through the window which gave us intermittent Internet as we drove.  You might want to test a different antenna configuration than we had.  We just pointed it out the front truck window. 

If we set up Google Mapping in a place with internet, it correctly showed our location and movement even along routes that lacked Internet, but I could not START a search or map a change out of cell or internet range.  So it is prudent to plan your route in advance and print or save any maps, distances, and target resources.  It is also wise to tell someone to expect to hear from you every other day or so.  If not, suggest a follow up plan.  On my first leg (south from Alaska) I texted my sons each day and let us know where we left and where we were headed, as well as info about our truck and camper.  I gave them the number of the Mounties in Yukon and BC.  On our route back, I wrote them only occasionally, because I felt more confident and familiar with the route and where we could stop.   

 

With these caveats and observations, I can say that we enjoyed a wonderful trip, from Alaska to Dawson Creek during the first half of March, and then back north in the second half of April, with an alternate route part of the way back north that we found more attractive than the Alcan all the way.  (See Itinerary article link). 

Vehicle performance:

Our truck, a 2005 Dodge RAM 350 dually, exceeded expectations on this trip.  We suffered no damage, not even a ding to the windshield.  But that is likely because we drove hours a time without seeing another vehicle and we crawled slowly over washboard asphalt.  Why go fast when there is no one to help you and you can’t call them from there anyway?

Camper performance:

We bought our 2019 Adventurer camper a few days before our trip.  We drove it around town and camped in a friend’s driveway two nights to get the hang of it before departing. 

Our 2019 Adventurer is labeled as a four season camper, but I am not sure what that means, since it loses heat very quickly after we turn off the heater.  En route, we discovered that if we plugged into shore power one night, we could boondock with heat the next two nights.  However, the third night the heat conked out.  We found an expensive midway spot to plug into a heater one night, but spent some cold nights under a heavy quilt on either side of that until we got to Whitehorse, YT, where the Dodge service center noticed that the camper dealership had not connected the camper’s batteries to the truck’s generator to charge while driving and one fuse was burned out. 

DUMPING:

Rvdumpsites.com was very helpful in finding dumpsites en route.  In addition to these, we found that private RV campgrounds often allowed dumping for a modest fee, like $10, but less often in winter.

For the first two weeks of our trip, we relied on 2 – 5 gallon jugs of water rather than filling our camper’s tanks in below freezing temperatures.  

We have never flushed toilet paper down the toilet.  We also throw it in a trash can. 

Our camper does have a functional shower, but the tank fills after two people shower twice plus gray water from the sink.  So when we could, we showered outside the camper. 

Advice:  If you have not previously camped in your vehicle/camper, take a short sample camping trip before a long one through remote (and therefore, expensive, locations).  Measure how long a propane tank, fresh, gray, and black water tank lasts.  Check your MPG. 

Twice we were slow to find a dump station and had some gray water sloshing around in the sink and bathroom floor, but that was our mistake. 

The only damage we sustained was to the roof window above the bed.  The plastic housing cracked, loosening it at high speeds, which, of course, cracked it some more.  Fortunately, no rain penetrated, but it will need to be replaced.  Since we never climbed up on the roof before departing, we do not know if there was a thin crack at the time.  Lesson learned.  We DID scrape some branches on a few early campsites, but I can’t see how damaging those could be. 

This was a wonderful trip and I look forward to repeating it in different seasons.