Support for WPR comes from Hackberries, Above People's Food Co-op in La Crosse, open for holiday parties and gatherings, serving a new winter menu featuring fresh ingredients from local farmers and producers. PFC.C. C OOP.

There was a day not long after I moved to Wisconsin. It was winter, and I had never really driven much in snow. And there was big snowstorm.

And, of course, I managed to get my car stuck in a snowdrift. And I remember sitting there in the car and the tires were spinning and spinning.

And I didn't know what to do. And there was a knock on the window. And this old guy was standing outside.

And he had in one of those big fur hats with the big ear flaps.

And he leaned in and said, do you have any kitty litter?

And I thought, I don't even have a cat.

There are things you learn when you live in a place for a while.

Things the old timers know that get passed down or handed on, like the fact that when you live in a place for a while. Things the old-timers know that get passed

down or handed on, like the fact that when your tires are spinning on ice, kitty litter works

better than sand, and a bag of it weighs a lot less, too. I'm Anne Strange Champs, and today,

onto the best of our knowledge, local knowledge, things you didn't learn in school or on the internet, but in person from someone like this.

My name is Mytting, Lars Mytting. I live in a place called Elvrum, which is at the very edge of the forest belt called the taiga.

If you're thinking where, I did too.

I looked it up.

The taiga is a gigantic snow forest,

cuts across a huge swath of northern Europe

all the way from Siberia to southern Norway.

And that's right where Lars lives.

So if there's one thing that people in that area know,

it's wood, how to chop it,

stack it, season it, heat their homes with it. And Lars, who's a journalist and a writer,

...