All Smiles (Trust Me). The author’s son shows off his new camouflage balaclava before heading out into January’s cold. Simonson Photo
By Nick Simonson
Coming out of last week’s deep freeze and the one day it pushed my boys and I to the truck for a rare two-block drive, instead of our normal walk to the nearby school, my youngest requested my facemask for the below-zero trek into the northwest winds. The sting on my cheeks gave me the suggestion that perhaps it was time he had his own, and I borrowed him the black fabric face cover for the day and made a quick run to the nearest outdoors section to find another for the boy who sprinted the last fifty yards to the front door of the school in the all-black neoprene balaclava and blaze orange hunting hat after I said goodbye and stepped things up in my trek back home.
Optimistic that a fresh stock was likely in for the winter, I scoured the boy’s and men’s winter gear to no avail and drifted back to the hunting and fishing sections to find a well-picked-over selection of blaze orange and camouflage clothing, mostly just jackets and handwarmer pouches remaining from the autumn’s now-closed seasons. A few hats, a couple field packs, and sets of randomly dropped gloves that must not have fit a potential customer quite right were piled on the metal shelf making up the bottom of the display. Lifting a couple of the loose items, I caught the curl of blaze orange cutting through the camouflage edge of some fabric like the crescent moon breaking free of the clouds at night, and I snatched it up.
It was an adult balaclava, but if I’ve transferred anything to my children, it’s my family’s larger noggins and some genes on my wife’s side have also helped the boys develop adult-sized heads requiring adult-sized caps already in this point of their childhood. I tried the facemask on, rolled the neck gator portion down into my jacket and zipped up. If it was a good fit for me, it’d likely fit my son too and I could see in the small mirror mounted to the nearby sunglasses display that indeed it was, and it would likely serve him well when he starts hunting in a few years. Reversable with both blaze orange and a respectable autumn camo pattern, it was a dual-season facemask that would get use as well as continuing tradition.
The term balaclava came about in the mid-1850s during the Crimean War as the British and their allied forces battled in the brutal winter against the Russians near the town of Balaklava, located along the Crimean Peninsula south of Sevastopal in what nearly 200 years later remains a hotbed of contestation in Ukraine. The Brits employed knitted facemasks which allowed them to cover everything but their eyes to stay warm and continue the assault on key military locations in the region, and the cold-weather headgear took on the name of the nearby town as the war ground on in the area. Since then, it’s become a go-to for skiiers, snowmobilers, and of course, hunters and ice anglers.
Having purchased my first (and as always, the best one owned) nearly 20 years ago, the black stretchy facemask had always kept late autumn and winter wind, snow and cold off my face allowing me relative comfort in those chilly late-season walks for pheasants. My camo versions – both a light fabric and thicker one – have served me well not only as reassurance that the shinier portions of my face and hair are concealed from the sharp eyes of deer, but also as a break against the breezes while on stand. Whether December pheasant hunting or ice fishing in February, having a balaclava has been part-and-parcel with the war against the elements when in the outdoors.
Like buying a snowblower before winter sets in or a new umbrella ahead of spring, last Friday’s purchase of my son’s new balaclava shut the cold valve off that was piping chill in from Canada this past week. It however sent him about on many imagined adventures of hunting deer, sneaking around the living room couch in his new facemask, and ultimately asking how cool it looked with his blaze orange stocking cap on top of it. Whether things would warm up or there was still a bit of chill to come this winter, I told him that not only did he look cool, the walks to school the rest of the season and hunts in the seasons to come down the road would be a whole lot warmer for both of us…in our outdoors.