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Cold weather requires too many calories. You use up too much energy trying to maintain warmth. Too much time collecting wood for a fire. Too easy to get hypothermia just having an accident and getting wet. My spot is farm with some friends and just 3 miles from a swamp with gators, catfish, snakes (edible), feral hogs etc. Lived in the mountains and found out the same issues with cold weather (longer winters) and more limited game. Also, use up a lot of energy traversing slopes. Too hard. At my age, need flatter, warmer environment.
Cold weather requires too many calories. You use up too much energy trying to maintain warmth. Too much time collecting wood for a fire. Too easy to get hypothermia just having an accident and getting wet. My spot is farm with some friends and just 3 miles from a swamp with gators, catfish, snakes (edible), feral hogs etc. Lived in the mountains and found out the same issues with cold weather (longer winters) and more limited game. Also, use up a lot of energy traversing slopes. Too hard. At my age, need flatter, warmer environment.
Personally, not a fan of molds, humidity, hurricanes, bugs and diseases they carry, but a swamp is fine for those that like it.
Means more room and resources in my cold barren part of the world
Most of these places you will starve if you don't freeze to death first. Long cold winters and short growing seasons. Just my opinion.
If a person refuses to grow crops, then that person will not have surplus food; today and tomorrow.
Outside of the Arctic Circle you can earn a living growing crops anywhere, with the possible exception of the vast drought-prone regions of the nation.
To produce surplus food, in a sustainable manner, without petroleum-chemicals or toxins, is being done in most regions. The biggest 'threat' to farming in drought. Which is fortunately restricted to drought-prone regions.
Cold weather requires too many calories. You use up too much energy trying to maintain warmth. Too much time collecting wood for a fire. Too easy to get hypothermia just having an accident and getting wet. My spot is farm with some friends and just 3 miles from a swamp with gators, catfish, snakes (edible), feral hogs etc. Lived in the mountains and found out the same issues with cold weather (longer winters) and more limited game. Also, use up a lot of energy traversing slopes. Too hard. At my age, need flatter, warmer environment.
Wet can lead to hypothermia and that can be an issue.
However linking that to cold, is odd. When you consider that when it is cold there is no wet.
'Wet' precipitation only happens when it is fairly warm.
'Wet' on the ground only happens when the ground is fairly warm.
Once it gets cold, the only source of wet, is your own breath and your body sweat.
Working can make your clothes damp, from your sweat, which is why good winter clothing needs to breath. However such does not lead to hypothermia.
I am not sure that I follow how Northern climates have any less game. I would argue the opposite.
As for mountains, I agree. I do not like climbing either. Which is why I bought flat land.
Scared of snakes, huh? Me too, but more fearful of cold.
Nah, Snakes don't bother me, but I really hate Mosquitos and all the things they carry
Cold is no big deal once you get used to it. When I was trapping I routinely would spend the night in a snow shelter even when the temps were down to -20 or more. (when it is below -40 it can be pretty uncomfortable )
Cold is great for keeping out large populations of people, you only have bugs for a short while in the summer, no roaches or termites here.
Yeah, we have to work hard during the summer, but at my latitude we have about 16 hours of daylight around the solstice, so it works out when we can hibernate in the winter.
Just what you are used to I guess. Never been one for heat and humidity, I like cool crisp nights and moderately warm days.
Makes for good sleeping and that morning fire to heat up the coffee sure feels good
Where I live there is a lot of big game, 12 species in fact, lots of small game and birds as well. Maybe not as many deer, but the cold makes for larger animals as the larger bodies tolerate cold better.
I will take one elk over 4 whitetail anyday.
Snakes keep people away too. I once read of a guy who posted on his house that he had live rattlesnakes loose in the house. Not me though. I keep a miniature dachshund. A home invader would slip in the "stuff".
I've seen a lot of wet cold though I understand in certain areas it would be mostly dry. You are right, you have to have the right clothing.
Mosquitos? Friend in Alaska tells me it ought to be their state bird or a toss up with black flies. I hear the flies are bad in Maine too. I'm just used to swamps. The pickins are easy for the most part. Fish traps and turtle traps. Lots of meat in a gator tail. Never hunted elk but where I live I can take down a white tail with a baseball bat. Too many of them.
Another thing about hot, humid areas is their historical propensity to harbor many potentially fatal diseases (chronically in the absence of modern medicine) that cannot thrive at all in areas where the winters are cold and harsh. Of course, that doesn't apply to all the "baddies," but it does cut a big chunk of them out.
In my case, I just don't handle heat well at all. It's a genetic thing. I'm very fit, but I sweat like a water faucet in high heat even if I'm not really doing much. That's dangerous. I can't do a thing about being overheated and nearing heat stroke (that's why I haven't done much of anything the last few weeks--it's been over 100 degrees, or close, for much of the past two months). On the other hand, if I'm cold, I simply put a coat on. Problem solved. I have everything from light winter gear to a parka that is rated down to 45 below zero. With the proper attire, there are no more calories consumed than there are when the body has to produce oodles of sweat to avoid overheating and exhaustion.
Many people discount the potentially fatal effects of ignoring the heat and trying to do "normal things." Locally, the other day, a woman in her twenties died of heat stroke while hiking. She was healthy; she just wasn't thinking very clearly and discounter the heat. Bad idea. Personally, I'd rather freeze to death than have a heat stroke. I've had pretty severe hypothermia and I've been very near heat exhaustion. I'll take the hypothermia. It's easier to self-treat in the environment. If it's 10 degrees and I'm getting too cold, I can continue to bundle up, build a fire, become more active physically. If it's 105 degrees and I'm nearing heat exhaustion, other than stripping down, dumping a water bottle over my head, and lying down, there isn't much I can do. And if I remain in that 105 degree heat when nearing heat exhaustion/stroke, it's probably going to happen no matter what I do. I can't cool my environment. I can warm my environment with clothing, fire, makeshift shelter, etc.
I think we've had this cold vs hot debate several times here, haven't we?
I agree with ChrisC, when it's blistering hot there is nothing you can do but swelter and be miserable- when it's coldcoldcold, you can at least keep bundling up, etc. Of course, I don't like extremes in either direction, but if I had to make a choice, I would opt for the cold! Living on the Northern Tier, the sweltering days are few and far between, thank goodness...
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