Almighty Snow Demons, I Ask Thee, Make The Winter Return

And so here we are... the last day of winter. It didn't seem long enough. It never is.

I can't deny it anymore... spring is coming. Oh, sure, we can get snow in April and May. And even in June. And it's not that long before August comes, and the first chilly nights turn up...

I've seen the first shoots of garden plants coming through the soil, so when one sees them... the game is up. Old man winter is giving up the ghost and scampering off, waiting to come back with a full force in just a few months.

It really is my favourite season, by the way. The cold and the chill, and the wind so harsh that it feels like a knife cutting inside your throat... well, that's what's so good about it!

Now, now, before you go off and start calling for my head on a pike, think about it. Now you can tease me about the onset of spring, all you warm weather worshippers. Lord knows I've teased you about how wonderful the winter is. 

This past winter, we've seen big storms hit various areas. As I recall, Al Roker was stranded halfway across America at one point. Rumors of his survival based on eating his cameraman remain unsubstantiated.

A few weeks ago, after Toronto had been hit by a storm, a columnist wrote about the overreaction city and school officials made to the storm. He described real winters. His mother, as a Prairie girl, lived on a farm, where one winter day, she found herself caught in a white out. Only by following cowbells into a barn did she survive. That, my friends, is a real winter.

He went on to describe living on Baffin Island in Canada's far north for several years. During one storm, the temperature went down to -35C. Add to that wind gusts well over 100 kilometres an hour, you can imagine the wind chill. During the night, he heard this ungodly roar. In the morning, he noticed his neighbour's roof had been torn off by the wind. That, my friends, is a real winter.

Weather forecasters seem to overreact, I think. These people (who incidentally get paid to be wrong 90%  of the time) have in the last few years developed a habit of calling storms Snowmaggedon or Snowzilla or Dear God, We're All Going To Die! Eat Your Children! As to the storm itself? Well, it might dump 25 centimetres of snow on the ground, but it's nothing to get worked up about.

Not all of them do that, mind you. The forecasters here in the nation's capital tend to take things in stride. They might say, "We're getting twenty centimetres out of this system, so take care driving in tomorrow morning." Very calm, reasonable, and reassuring.

Contrast that with the spineless cowards at Global Television in Toronto (more on that in a future blog, tenatively called Why Canadians Hate Toronto), who, at the sign of ten centimetres of snow, proclaim it as a major snow emergency, and for thirty centimetres tell the audience they must consider taking a page from the Donner Party.

Goodbye, winter. I still love you. Hurry back just in time for the end of August.

Winterlude: Over Already? That's Not Fair!

Yes, once more Winterlude has come to an end here in Ottawa and Gatineau, and I for one will miss it. It's a festival that brings in hundreds of thousands each year to skate on the Rideau Canal, to take in the city, and to celebrate the best weather Canada has to offer. Yes, I'm talking about the winter, quiet, you summer worshippers.... Goodbye, Ice Hogs who look like chipmunks....

One of the basic staples of Winterlude is the Beavertail, which, contrary to what you might think, is neither something kinky or a part of an actual beaver. It's a flat pastry, fried and covered with a variety of toppings. It's a business that's been around awhile, here in Ottawa, and if you pay a visit here, you have to try one out. There are permanent locations in the city, and numerous booths set up for festivals and big days like Canada Day.

I only got over to the other side of the Ottawa River, to Jacques Cartier Park in Gatineau, on the weekend, where I was dismayed to find that the snow sculptures were absent this year. It's actually my favourite part of the entire festival, sculpture teams from all provinces and territories carving out blocks of snow into art forms. Instead, there were a couple about in what's generally a children's play area, with giant snow slides built in the park, right beside the frozen river.

And so once again, time to put away the celebrations for another year. It doesn't mean the winter's over, of course. There's still all of March. And April. And May. And even June.

Winterlude: Art In Ice

The second weekend of Winterlude is behind us, and I thought I'd pass along some pictures gleaned from various sites, concentrating on ice sculptures this time out...

The main sculptures are on display in Confederation Park downtown, many of them beneath shelters (it's really handy for preserving them that way)....

Winterlude: Celebrating The Best Season

It's that time of year again. February brings Winterlude to Ottawa and Gatineau for three weekends. The thinking up here being that if you can't beat winter, celebrate it. The opening weekend is done, and the crowds were out. I thought I'd do some blogs on it during the festival, and so this is the first one. I am taking pictures, though these aren't mine. They're lifted from other sources. I'm still using film cameras (disposables, at that, damn you camera for dying on me!).....

Things started on Friday with fireworks above the Ottawa River. I wasn't there; I was off doing a bit of cross country skiing. This time I managed not to have any near-collisions with a deer.

The Rideau Canal is the centrepiece of the festival. Over seven kilometres in the heart of Ottawa are cleared  for skating, and people take advantage. It is, in fact, the world's largest outdoor skating rink.

Finally, on the first weekend, there are the ice carving contests. More pictures of that in the coming days, but for now I thought I'd leave you with these. First off, the tools that are actually used to get the job done might include these:

It starts off with chainsaws, and from there ice carvers work their way down to saws, chisels, sandpaper, awns, and whatever other piece of equipment might come to mind. Incidentally, that includes irons.