Tell me about something that was described so well, you could see it in your mind. (chapters 17–20)

In chapter 17 Edwin and Garvey wake Cole up early after he has had a restless night without much sleep and with many dreams and anxieties. They go to the stream and Edwin declares that they will go swimming in a freezing pond to teach Cole a lesson. He makes Cole dip completely into the water shoulder-high and then asks him to break a stick, whose left side represents anger and right side represents happiness. The lesson implied is that if you focus on anger and try to break the left side off, a left side of the stick always remains. Edwin tells Cole how when he was banished to the island he would dip himself every day in the freezing pond and try to focus on the happy end of the stick, not the angry end. I can visualize that freezing pond in Alaska. I can almost feel the bone chilling freezing water cut the circulation off my body while Edwin and Garvey grin.