Enough Already

As I write this, it's storming like crazy, and the slippery roads have deprived me of the daily "pick up milk, get some gas" solo excursion that I have come to rely on. I have firmly decided that I have had it up to here (envision my hand a foot above my head) with winter.

Go ahead, I dare you to call me a sooky baby. I double dare you to give me the "it's Cape Breton, deal with it" speech. Because in my 29 short years on this planet, it may surprise you how much winter I've actually experienced.

I remember being a kid in River Bourgeois and jumping off our roof into the snow, since the only things taller than the snowbanks were houses and utility poles. And I remember walking through four feet of snow, standing at the bus stop while my face was lambasted with ice pellets, and the drive to school was like a scene from "Tokyo Drift." It may not be equal to our grandparents' "walking to school uphill both ways in a blizzard", but some mornings it was close.

But beyond any childhood flashback, or any Nova Scotian winter lament, is the horrible memory of "the North". As many of you know, I spent a few years living and working in the Arctic.

Have you ever seen the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" with Dennis Quaid? That movie showed the earth moving into another Ice Age at -75 degrees, and the planet froze over. Well, I can tell you with absolute certainty that something like that couldn't happen, because the day I left Qikiqtarjuaq (have fun pronouncing that), it was -72 degrees with the windchill. That is not a tall tale or an exaggeration. Absorb that for a moment. Think about people's reaction to -25 degrees, and then imagine having to deal with -72. I can tell you, it's not comfortable. And it's not even the same kind of cold we get in Cape Breton, it's a mind-numbing, bitter, bone-marrow-covered-in-icicles kind of cold that you have to feel to believe.

Here's an example: you know how you go outside in December with wet hair and it freezes and gets hard? Well that happens in Nunavut, too. Only it happens when your hair is DRY, and it also freezes your eyelashes and nose hairs. Word to the wise: never underestimate a 30 second frostbite warning.

In Qikiqtarjuaq, winter was almost year round. There were a few months that weren't AS cold, but even in August, I woke up to a huge, Titanic-calibre iceberg floating in the water near my house. When the "warm" weather came, we were all sporting tshirts and panting and sweating, and it was only about 12 degrees. The day it hit 19 was almost more than we could handle.

Then you have to consider the darkness. At a latitude that high, winter is almost 24 hour a day darkness. There is an hour or so in the afternoon when the sun rises slightly enough to give the horizon the appearance of dusk, but that's it, and for months. I don't know about you, but no amount of Vitamin D capsules can replace a day of sunlight for me. It was depressing. And I didn't just see this once, I was there for a few years.

So now, can we safely say that I've endured more than my fair share of winter? Haven't I made my case for the right to complain a little?

There are others living in the Strait area who have also dealt with many Nunavut winters, and these people, myself included, are the first to scoff at Nova Scotian complainers. Normally, I'm the first one to say "suck it up, it's not that bad", and in comparison, it's not. But still, that doesn't mean I don't get sick of it, especially at this time of year. It's the tease of spring that kills me. One day, it's 15 degrees and the sun is splitting the rocks outside. The next day, like today, my heat is cranked, and I can't even see across the road for the blowing snow. Make up your mind, Mother Nature! Is it over, or isn't it? Can we break out the bicycles or do we need mittens at the ready? I need some consistency here! Haven't I done enough winter already?

My luck, the day this goes to print it will be a balmy 20 degrees and every reader will be wondering why I'm ranting and raving at such nice weather. But don't say I didn't warn you. Cindy Day, with her Shirley Temple ringlets, red lipstick & "I love snow" attitude, is sure to curse us once more before the season is over. And when that happens, you'll all be echoing my sentiments, trust me.

NOTE*** I wrote this last Wednesday when it was storming in Port Hawkesbury...just so you all know, it was bad out a few days after that, again yesterday, and we're supposed to get up to 40cm of snow again in the next few days. It's Cindy Day, I'm telling you. She's a witch.