Ben Franklin's world is The podcast dedicated to helping

you learn more about how the people and events of our early American past have shaped the present day world we live in.

And I'm your host, Liz Kovart.

Winter.

For much of North America, winter represents a period of cold ice, snow, and darkness.

For some, this period of cold ice snow and darkness means a fun season of recreation.

While for others, winter is a time to hunker down indoors and it's a season

that can't end fast enough.

In our 21st century, Americans have different experiences with and feelings about winter.

Which raises the question, how did the people of early America experience and feel about winter?

Thomas Wickman is an associate professor of history in American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

He's also the author of Snowshoe Country, an environmental and cultural history of winter in the early American Northeast.

Tom is an expert in early American winter time experiences,

and he joins us today to help answer our questions

about how Native Americans and early Americans

experienced then felt about winter during the 17th and early

American's

18th and early 18th centuries.

Now, as we trek through what Tom describes as

snowshoe country, Tom reveals,

details about winter in the 17th and early 18th century northeast.

Information about how Native American peoples thought about an experienced winter during the 17th and early 18th

...