Soon after I met my (now) husband, I realized I was going to have to make a choice. He and I shared some general interests, but the specifics overlapped very little. We both loved the outdoors, but he liked hunting and power sports while I liked backcountry hiking and camping. We both loved blasting music at all times of the day, but he liked country and metal, and I liked, well, anything but country and metal. We both loved good food, but he preferred his own cooking while I preferred eating out. We both appreciated climate control, but his ideal temperature was 65* while mine was about 10 degrees higher.

Once I knew both how our interests differed and that he was for sure my guy, I saw that if I wanted us to get lots of quality time together while minimizing boredom or the desire to strangle each other, I was going to have to choose to learn to like some things that I really did not like. So I made a country playlist on Spotify, ate lots of grilled meat, learned terms like “Hemi” and “Duramax, and when he asked if I wanted to go fishing with him, I always said, “yes.” 

Real change did not happen on all fronts: despite my best efforts, I still don’t enjoy having a chunk of meat for dinner, and while I now love Kip Moore, Jon Pardi, and Kacey Musgraves, when an “Outlaw Country” song starts playing you’ll catch me rolling my eyes. Even so, I was largely successful. For our first Christmas together, my husband thought a new fishing pole and tackle box would be perfect gifts. And they were. Every weekend that summer we were out on a lake. We spent countless hours kayak fishing and ate more beer battered bass and lemon roasted trout than I could say. Catching fish was always fun, but what I really enjoyed was sharing time outside. When hard work weeks or family stress frazzled and scattered us, fishing soothed and brought us back to the same page. 

One of the things my husband was most excited about when we moved to Libby was the fishing prospects. Living so close to a river meant he’d finally have the time to learn to fly fish. My favorite summer activity is now kayaking down the Kootenai, a fishing rod in one hand and a beer in the other. But my husband was even more excited for something that sounded to me nothing short of torturous: ice fishing. I think I’ve proved a willingness to step outside of my comfort zone, but I draw a line at intentionally being cold. I hate being cold. If it were up to me, our thermostat would never be set below 75* and our fireplace would be ablaze October to March. Fortunately, Libby winters are remarkably mild. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the long autumns and manageable winters we have here. Even so, cold is cold. Ice fishing was a big, minky-blanket-wrapped, hot-cocoa-chugging “NOPE” from me.

Soon after we moved to Libby, some friends invited us to go ice fishing with them. I had some hard calculating to do. Ultimately I came to the (difficult) conclusion that one day of cold was worth quality time with friends, especially since we were new in town. Seeing that my “NOPE” was loud but not absolute, my husband took up the mantle of bridging our respective passions ( his of fishing, mine of staying warm). For Christmas he gave me a heated vest. He bought an ice fishing shack, a little propane heater, and a big sled. He packed it all up with camp chairs, lots of snacks, hot coffee, and cold beer, and drove us out to go ice fishing. He had me stay in the truck while he set up the shack and got the heater going, pulled out the oreos and stouts, and set my rod up. Once it was all ready, he called me over. I trekked out to the shack, stepped inside, and…it was kind of warm! Between my vest, the heater, and the caffeine, sugar, and alcohol, it was actually a pleasant temperature. This isn’t so bad, I thought. “Man, ice fishing sure is terrible, isn’t it?” quipped my husband. “So terrible!” I smiled back, but my attention was quickly drawn away, because I had the first bite.