Marjie's Blog page: It's cool in Canada

Our yard in winter

December 4th 2010. Freezing rain today in the UK. And as I slip around on the black ice, my thoughts stray to another place, a few thousand miles away where we had a continual slide throughout the long winters.

So we think it's cold here in the UK? There's cold and there's cold, and when you've lived for ten years in Canada, boy you know what cold is. You sure do. It's life in the freezer cold…and then some…..

Would the car start in the morning? No it wouldn't and that was only at the very beginning of the long winter. So I got myself an engine heating block. My boyfriend fitted it on the car engine and then plugged the car into a wall socket in the garage, so the engine didn't freeze up overnight.

So far so good. But in the thick of winter, getting from the house into the car was a nightmare. A very cold recurring one. So I was told by my boyfriend that I needed a "command start". He said it was an absolute must if I was not to die of frost bite getting from the front door to the car.

With this wondrous little gadget that fitted onto my keyring, I could switch on the car engine, turn the car heating on and then unlock the car door, all from the warmth of the kitchen. And then came the inevitable and necessary 'dash for it' before I developed frost bite on my exposed nose and other extremities as I made my way into the garage and, hopefully sat in a warm car ready to start the day.

I was told that if you inhaled freezing air for too long, the ice particles would get into your lungs and after a while your body temperature would not be able to counteract the effects……

I was also told that if you spit (yes, spit) (yuk) the spittle would freeze before it hit the ground. (Yuk again). Don't know. A bit too much information! Never met anyone who had tried it - though I'm sure some had!

Our usual watering hole was The Royal Canadian Legion - Branch 59, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan to be exact, and on the days we called in for a beer (and sometimes a Gin and Tonic in my case) or just a soft drink if one of us was driving, we would leave the car engine running whilst we were in there, otherwise it would not start when we came out. It would be completely frozen up. Okay, it did nothing to help combat global warming or help the environment in general, but that's how you had to do it if you wanted a few hours of socialising and be sure to get home safely.

And then there was the Snow Blower. Oh my golly what fun we had with the snow blower. Holy Moly. The first time I tried it I had it turned the wrong way and managed to cover myself with about twelve inches of snow. To say it defeated the object is to put it mildly. I had turned into a very animated snow person. And it was always dry powdery snow. Not like the wet heavy stuff that you get in the UK but thin powdery snow that blows around easily, even in a moderate breeze, and so you can have a blizzard when in fact it is not snowing. "Blowing snow"........

The first winter I spent in Canada, I discovered that supermarket parking lots are not cleared along with the main highways and Main Streets. Therefore the snow becomes impacted and Voila!…very soon what you have is a mighty fine skating rink. My first attempts at manoeuvring my way from car to supermarket entrance was tricky to say the least. I only managed it by desperately holding onto each car as I inched my way towards the doors, terrified of ending up with broken bones. Although I never did break any bones, I sure went down on my derriere quite a few times. Painful….The embarrassment too…All the local people just skated across……..What I wimp I must have looked......

One of the beautiful and wondrous phenomena caused by temperatures that went down as low as -50C, was the awesome spectacle of the Solar Halo or Perihelion. A huge ring around the sun, and at right, left, top and bottom - a mini sun, sometimes in the form of a cross, other times just a mini rainbow sun. Locals call them "Sun Dogs" - the sun was taking the dogs for a walk? A charming feat of imagination….

The Sun Dog phenomena is created by ice crystals in the atmosphere, and in the morning sunshine these crystals were visible, shimmering like a thousand tiny diamonds scattered in the air. An amazing sight in itself.

One of the Sun Dogs

And yet we were very rarely "snowed in". We always managed to get out. No schools of work places where ever closed.

I remember the year in the early hours of New Years Day 2003, there was a huge fire in Downtown Moose Jaw. If I remember correctly, three department stores were burned to the ground. Thing was, as the fire hoses were putting out the fire, the water was immediately freezing again on the exposed pipes and on the walls of the surrounding buildings, even as the fire was raging, making weird "ice sculptures" which remained throughout the long winter, until the first warmth of Spring came along and melted them.

Another year, Elks and Deer came in from the open Prairies searching for food. It was not unusual to open the blinds in the morning and come face to face with an Elk, standing right there looking in the window at you.

Happy times.