In 2018, North Dakota gifted us one of those windchills that doesn’t just bite—it cuts. The kind of cold that turns the air brittle and makes every surface feel like it’s plotting against you. I was on air-monitoring duty that day, watching the gauges and sensors fight the weather almost as hard as we were.
Down below, a crew of roustabouts wrestled with a problem you never see until you work up there: when it gets cold enough, the filter media—usually a slushy, pourable mess—turns into solid sculpture. What should flow like mud becomes more like sandstone. When the job has to get done, you don’t wait for spring.
So they dragged out a heated pressure washer, a beast designed just for days like this, and started carving. Not cleaning—carving. Steam rising off the ice, the machine roaring against the wind, while the roustabouts chipped away as if they were excavating a frozen relic from another age.
All I could do was monitor the air and watch the whole scene unfold:
humans vs. the cold, industry vs. nature, determination vs. the kind of weather that doesn’t care who you are.
You don’t forget days like that. They shape you. They remind you that capability isn’t just a skill—it’s an instinct. Sometimes, being a “citizen of the world” means simply showing up, doing your part, and carving a path through whatever frozen obstacles life decides to drop in front of you.
The Wayfinder's Spiral 