Anyway

We spent Christ­mas and a few days either side in Sakat­chewan, land of –27 C days and even colder nights. But, as it turns out, little snow. Driv­ing along High­way 1 you could see the stubble of plants stick­ing out of the slim white cov­er­ing, giv­ing the hori­zon a green-brown tinge. There was more snow in sheltered places, dry and feath­ery, the sort of snow that doesn’t get you wet when you fall in it as it brushes off so easily.

Com­ing home to Van­couver it was a dif­fer­ent story. We missed out on being there for the almost-record snow­falls (I gather we only need another 2 cm to beat the record set in 1964), but enough remained on the ground to require lots of snow-shovelling. Maybe next year I’ll break down and get a real snow shovel with bet­ter ergo­nom­ics; my back muscles are groan­ing using our emer­gency fold­ing one with its too-short handle. Snow at tem­per­at­ures around zero C is wet and sticky, not at all feath­ery, and it doesn’t brush off eas­ily. In places the snow has the choppy look of whipped egg whites that have star­ted to break down, in oth­ers like smooth piles of icing sugar, 60 cm (2 feet) or more thick. On the roads it’s a dirty grey col­our, piled high in spots, inter­spersed with pock­ets of water that can’t make it to the storm drain and pock­ets of ice where the sun can’t reach.

It was the first coast to coast white Christ­mas since 1971, and we’re in the middle of another snow­fall warn­ing with snow fore­cast for the next three days (which should eas­ily break that record). I’m glad I work from home.