Snowboundness, Shovels, Supply Caches and Wolf problems

[EternityTide]

Shovels (already suggested multiple times by people, but bear with me) would be a new tool to add to the game that allow players to access areas or objects that are normally covered with snow. Currently the game has two states for buildings - whole and destroyed. It would be interesting to have buildings which are whole, but inaccessible due to snowfall, UNLESS you have a shovel - this would mean the player would have to shovel snow out of the way to open a door.
Perhaps all buildings should have a chance to be blocked by a snowdrift - snow slides off of roofs all the time, so its not a hard stretch of the imagination.
This concept of "snowboundness" could be extended to other things. For example, how do you thoroughly search a corpse which is embedded so deeply in a snow drift that you can only see a foot or a face poking out? You could then dig them out to search them. This would present a dilemma to the player - do you spend the calories digging up the corpse in hopes of finding decent supplies, or do you leave it and return another time?
Deep snow banks would also present the opportunity to dig snow shelters with the shovel, something invaluable in a blizzard.
I also think that the act of butchering a deer should come with a risk - cutting into the animal will release the scent of blood which will carry on the wind, alerting downwind wolves to your presence. You could mitigate this issue slightly by burying the corpse of the deer, reducing the chances of being detected by a wolf. Note that this would not aggro the wolf, just trigger it to investigate the source of the smell. 
Seeing as there is a presence of whatever the Canadian equivalent of US forestry rangers is (the lookouts, as an example), I reckon that given the environment, there would be supply caches in various places. I remember early playthroughs of TLD would often end in death if I tried to climb the mountain in ML area, to get to the Forestry Lookout, simply due to cold and starvation. Obviously, now, things have been rebalanced, however it would be nice if there was a wooden chest at the base or halfway up the mountain containing some supplies. The boxes would simply be a square, wooden chest, painted yellow or green, with a padlock on it.
As an interesting change to the ordinary act of vandalism when opening containers of this sort, I'd like to introduce a few mechanics:

• The contents are randomly generated, but will always contain an item of clothing above 50%, some food and at least one fuel item. Rare spawns include tools and rope.
• The accessibility and state of the box is randomly chosen. Similar to "destroyed" buildings, some caches may be smashed in by some person previously (despite lacking any contents, this can be harvested for reclaimed wood, provided you have a hatchet). Some boxes will be frozen shut, requiring a prybar to open, some will need to be dug out due to a heavy covering of snow. All caches (except destroyed caches) have a combination padlock holding them shut. They can be smashed.
• Cache boxes can be used to store objects indefinitely (but has finite volume, and food degrades at the same rate as it would at the external temperature). However smashing the lock on a cache results in a 5% chance that it will be emptied by some unknown person (come on, you think you are the ONLY one out there trying to survive?). Locked caches containing your stored items have a 0.1% chance of being smashed open and emptied.
• Blizzards and snowfall can freeze caches shut again or rebury caches which you have uncovered, so once you've opened up a cache, there's no guarantee it will remain the way you left it.
• Emptied caches have a chance (5%) of sometimes be refilled by an unknown person (whom you will never see) - however the code on the lock will have been changed, and smashed locks will be replaced. If you repeatedly smash locks instead of opening them, there is a chance that upon the cache being refilled, a heavier, smash proof lock (with a 5 number combination instead of a 3 number combination) will be installed on the cache.

[Dirmagnos]

What exactly would stop me from digging to that door by hand ?

Scent of blood is nowhere as potent as many may believe, even with enhanced smell senses of bears and wolves. It doesnt attract every predator from miles around, since they cant smell it. Presence of blood odor indicates that animal may be dead of wounded, thats it.

[EternityTide]

Oh you could dig out the door by hand, it would just take longer and make you colder faster. Frostbite on the hands is a bitch.
I am aware that the scent of blood does not turn wolves in the the terrestrial-equivalent of sharks, but they will still smell it within 100 metres or so downwind. It's just one aspect of the idea. What did you think of the rest of it?

 

[RaeRiceSimmer]

I've often thought about snowdrifts and this makes a lot of sense to have shovels to dig yourself out after a blizzard.  Even more interesting would be having to use your hands to dig yourself out of a shelter and getting frostbite. I really like the idea of our own cashes for supplies because I enjoy remote regions for settling.  For some reason I picture a red squirrel breaking into one and taking the food, but a bear smashing it open makes more sense.  Perhaps instead of other survivors breaking in, bear smash them up?

[SteveP]

As far as the West coast of Canada is concerned, I've never seen forestry supply caches. You might be thinking of FireWatch! Due to the extreme isolation and distances involved. I do believe they built several emergency shelters with minimal supplies for fire starting along the Labrador coast. Les Stroud did an episode in one.

[vancopower]

The most valuable usage for shovel in the game I can think of is digging up  a hole to make large animal trap. or piling up snow to make a temporary shelter from the windchill effect. other than that shovel is pretty much useless since you already got pry bar to force things to open. And digging snow by hand it is not that hard unless it is ice then you brake it with the hammer or pry bar so yea Shovel = traps, shelter for me.

[LucidFugue]

I love the idea of buildings being snowbound after a blizzard, as well as the ability to dig into snow for various purposes - traps, windbreaks, whatever else makes  sense. 

[cekivi]

Caches don't make lots of sense. I've never actually come across one in any provincial or national parks I've been in

Especially the mysterious stranger who re-locks them!

However, the rest of your post is nice. Snowdrifts that you need to remove by hand, with crude tools (finally a use for branches!) or with a shovel would definitely increase the player-environment interactions. I think this would be very cool. Do you risk freezing for the possibility of good loot and shelter or just carry on? Especially if the drifts slowly reform over multiple blizzards!

Lastly, @Dirmagnos is probably right: predators are not really going to smell the blood. Blood's mostly salt, water and lipids with some cells afterall. The guts on the other hand... now those stink!