Not a Winter Wonderland

On this third morning of 2009, I’m looking out my window in disgust. A new dusting of snow has landed in the night, just enough to cover the thin layer of ice we already had and make any kind of outdoor navigation treacherous. My mother grew up in Winnipeg and used to relate, with no nostalgic tones in her voice whatsoever, that when winter arrived all the little kiddies started to sing:

In Winnipeg in winter
It snows and snows and snows;
It covers all the fields and town
And Queen Victoria’s nose.


(Note for foreigners: Winnipeg, otherwise known as Winterpeg, is a city in central Canada that’s covered by dozens of feet of snow in winter and millions of mosquitoes in summer; there are no other seasons. A statue of Queen Victoria sits in front of the parliament buildings.)


The whole point about this Victoria is that it’s not supposed to snow here. We’re meant to have a lovely temperate climate that fluctuates between 15 and 25 degrees Celsius (or 50 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit), never too hot, never too cold. Residents feel there’s rather too much rain sometimes but they say it smugly and don't carry umbrellas (although that has more to do with the high winds that accompany the rain and turn any umbrella ever made inside out within 1.5 seconds than the gentleness of the rain). We graciously tolerate a small, dignified amount of snow once every five to ten years. It’s expected to be brief, picturesque and well-behaved, like a scrap of lace napkin tucked under a bone china teacup and whisked away by an efficient waiter before it becomes grubby with Earl Grey stains and fruitcake crumbs.


The snow we have now first arrived around the middle of December. It’s rude and belligerent and refuses to leave. Since the city doesn’t own any snow ploughs or stockpiles of salt and sand – and no one here knows how to drive in the snow - it creates mayhem on the streets. Absolute mayhem. It’s not uncommon to see cars abandoned in the middle of thoroughfares. Stuck in the snow? No problem. Just get out of your vehicle and walk away; come back when the snow melts.

Almost no one owns snow shovels, either, so getting to work becomes a lengthy, tension-fraught undertaking. Personally, I’d be just as happy to stay home and watch the Canada geese skidding across Portage Inlet but the little matter of a pay cheque deters me. The other morning, swathed in whatever scarves I could find and unhappily bootless, I went out to the parking lot and looked at my car in despair. A foot of snow sat behind it and about a foot and a half snuggled up to each of its two doors. Refusing to be daunted, however, I gave my brain a brief cudgel, then resolutely set to work with a sponge mop and a dust pan.


This is not a method I can recommend. I was eventually rescued by the kindness of shovel-wielding strangers and got to work only three hours late.


I hope you now understand why the cockles of my heart didn’t clamber about ecstatically when confronted with this morning’s fresh snow.