Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Breakup: 100 Years of Attitude

"As the time approaches when we may reasonably hope to be released from our winter quarters, it is a curious fact that everyone seems to be more impatient and irritable than during the winter months. It is possible that the excessively long days now make it more difficult to get a sufficient amount of sleep, and this may account in a measure for the phenomena. Be that as it may, the fact remains that everyone is more or less distraught and uncommunicative. Even the dogs seem to share in the general feeling of gloomy irritability, and from having been as a usual thing extremely affectionate and playful, are now ill natured, quarrelsome, and morose."

-- from "Report of the U.S. Revenue Steamer Nunivak on the Yukon River Station, Alaska, 1899-1901," by First Lieutenant J.C. Cantwell, R.C.S.

1 comment:

Ishmael said...

Also known as Spring Fever.

I had an elder once tell me that my springtime fidgets were because this was the time of year my male ancestors would leave winter camp to go out onto the ice for seal hunting, and the genetic memory was alive in me.