Snow Machines

(Courtesy TLC)

Have you noticed the reemergence of Sarah Palin? Sadly, it's mainly in jokes on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report about how forgotten and irrelevant she's become. I couldn't help but think of her when I came across this passage about forest Eskimos along the Kobuk River in John McPhee's Coming into the Country:

Dog teams have largely been replaced by snowmobiles (or snow machines, as they are almost universally called in Alaska).... Snow machines, however--for all their breathtaking ability to go as fast as fifty miles an hour over roadless terrain--break down now and again, and are thus perilous. A stranded traveler cannot eat a snow machine. Dog teams in the region are increasing in number, and the take of salmon is growing as well.

I wonder what Sarah is doing now.