Its a pretty good guess that when you think of Canada you think of snow. Its our claim to fame. Almost our national treasure. Like the ocean it provides extraordinary beauty and intrique. It can be sweet and calming with a beauty that is matchless. Equally it can be treacherous and frought with peril. Love it, respect it, enjoy it and you ll have a delectable experience.
Through most of Canada winter can arrive somewhere in October or November and it can stay settled in with us until March or April. Its totally unpredictable. Sometimes it arrives with a subtle cooling of temperatures and the soft massive flakes float gracefully down like feathers falling from a nest on a windless day. Sometimes it arrives with roaring angry winds and is piercingly delivered in sharp shards that seem to cut through the air with damage in mind. Other times it s delivered in wet sopping downward falling clumps. Within hours everything is covered in a fresh coat of white. Sometimes almost all color disappears. Roofs are thick white masses, yards and lawns, fields, roads are buried in knee deep mounds of snow.
Those who enjoy skiing, snowmobiling and other snow related sports are delighted when we have fresh 'powder'. Those of us who need to clear sidewalks, drive ways and roads are sometimes a little less delighted. We live with it and in some ways we love it. A winter day whitened by a raging storm leaves one feeling isolated and lonely. Particularly if you are trying to drive through it and realize the potential dangers of not being able to see more than 3 feet in fromt of your vehicle. The first snow fall always brings reports of accidents and abandoned transportation in ditches and along roadways.
A winter day thats calm with brilliant sunlight is incomprable. The crusted snow glistens with a radiance all it s own. Imagine everything in sight covered in silver-white glitter shimmering and near blinding with its brilliance. There is no feeling quite like walking over crusted snow drifts, feeling the crunch and hearing squeels as you tread where no one has walked before. Lay down on your back in fresh fallen snow, spread your arms and drag them through the snow. Stand up and admire the snow angel you ve created. When its slightly wet begin rolling balls until they are huge rotund things as high as your waist. Stack them and make a snow people. Add some trim...a carrot nose, some charcoal eyes and nice toque with a matching scarf. Everybodys an artist with snow as a medium. Children build forts or make elaborate trails. Lovers tramp their initials inside of hearts. We scoop it up and taste it disappear on our tongues. (Watch the yellow snow....not good.)
With snow comes her sister frost....in particular hoar frost. It coats everything with a thick layer of gleaming crystal. Trees wiped bare of their leaves by the autumn winds become glorious sculptures of sparkling ice. Power cables are heavy garlands like diamond ropes looping from frost coated poles. Even errant blades of grass take on the winter gown of glittering lame. Sometimes the weight of the hoar frost stresses the power lines and transforms. It s not unusual to see a display of sparks as brilliant as fireworks rapidly followed by a power outage.
Here in south-western Alberta we have a special blessing added to this winter glory. We recieve warm sweeping winds drifting off of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. We call them Chinooks. I believe a name given to them by the aboriginal people. These winds are announced by a break in the clouds when looking westward where a huge arch of clear sky appears. The chinook arch is similiar in shape to a rainbow and we Albertans know its the promise of warmth to come in hours.
When the winds arrive they may attack a temperature that hovers around 20 below zero farenheit and rapidly whip that temperature upward to a balmy 40 or 50 degrees above zero in just a matter of an hour. Imagine the changes this creates. Streets and roads covered or banked with huge mounds of snow that are suddenly converted to running rushing water. You might have worn your heaviest winter coat when you left your home in early morning. Now you carry it and all other winter outerwear over your arm as you enjoy the feel of spring against your t-shirted shoulders.
The change to higher temperatures can last a few days and then we get another winter blast. Maybe it accounts for our Alberta temperment. Warm and friendly but challenged we re fiesty and full of gusto. These irratic temperatures are blamed for many things. Often our vegetation begins to bloom because of the sudden warmth then is killed by the rapid drop. We loose plenty of perennial garden plants to chinooks. The native plants survive much better having adapted to those variations in temperature. It takes a very special amount of patience to learn to grow anything in these conditions and our growth season is exceptionally short.
People here will often express that they feel the chinooks coming. Some claim to have migraines or additional aches and pains. Others claim to lifting of seasonal depression. Most are delighted at the relief from winters cold embrace.
Appropriate winter wear in this climate is a bikini under a full length fur coat........that way one is prepared for any condition that presents itself during the day. There is a saying...."If you dont like the weather in Calgary....wait 10 minutes."
