Sunshine and Snow by Harold Bindloss

Winter came, and Charley learned to use the heavy axe, which added to the breadth of his shoulders, as he whirled it round his head hewing birch-logs for fuel in the bluff. The stove glowed red hot by night and day, and they slept under rugs of skin in an upper room through which its iron chimney ran, for all the way across that great lonely land, from Hudson's Bay to the River Missouri, winter is nearly Arctic on the prairie. Then there were long sleigh rides over the snow to the little railway town for provisions -- for the men who work like giants acquire gigantic appetites -- and cosy evenings spent beside the stove, when their sister Alice, who had come out from England to keep house, read to them.

Frost flowers crusted the windows, and outside the coyotes howled as they sought shelter in the birch-bluff from the bitter cold, but it was very snug and warm within.