Nature is a part of life. It can change people in different ways. It gives people different viewpoints of life. It helps people learn valuable lessons and those people keep valuable lessons close to them because it changed them. In the book Winterdance, Gary Paulsen has many experiences of nature transforming his perspective on life. Before and during the Iditarod Paulsen has experienced nature changing his perspective drastically. Paulsen is wanting to learn from the dogs before getting into the Iditarod race, and he states, “This time I didn’t go away and it altered the way they saw me, felt about it, thought of me and my actions, and changed the way I thought as well-started me thinking right” (Paulsen 89-90). Even before entering the Iditarod