Winter sits heavy on the Upper Peninsula, and by midwinter the town wears it — white on every roofline, white banked along the alleys, white piled where two storms met. Upper Peninsula Roofing Company takes on snow removal in that season, opening driveways and lots and getting the walkways and entries down to something solid underfoot. Snow that has thawed and refrozen a few times behaves nothing like the fresh fall, so the job is as much about timing and ice as it is about pushing volume. Sand and salt go where the sun angle and the runoff say they should, not just where it is easy. There is a plain pride in a cleared property standing bright against all that grey January sky.