Icy - Two Perspectives
My adopted home in the west is an icy place during the winter, and it brings out both the worst and the best.
On the weekend as the temps dipped to a “high” of -24C (and that’s cold in any language), Ray’s sister and I headed out for an afternoon of shopping. Outdoor shopping. On an actual street with stores that you enter off a concrete sidewalk, not a temperature-controlled terrazzo floor.
Now, let me stress at the outset that, at the risk of blowing my own hardy horn, this weather does not bother me. We had much the same kind of winter last year: Very cold for a very long time. I still walked to and from work and occasionally bundled up and went for a leisurely stroll. But Ray’s sister transplanted herself back home last year after four years in the Washington area. Her blood is still thin, And Edmontonians, I have learned, love to complain about the weather and hibernate almost as much as Torontonians. So as we ventured out late Saturday morning, I had low expectations: I anticipated deserted streets, spartan attendance in the shops, and lots of “well, you know, with the weather and all…”.
But such was not the case.
My companion was fine, even commenting about how nice it was in the sunshine. The streets were well-populated, and faces were smiling. Hell, even the homeless people were happy to be out. Rather than being curled up in their sleeping bags or sheltered away in cardboard boxes, they were out sipping coffees, selling newspapers, and striking up conversations with anyone who was game. The stores were well attended, the coffee shops jammed, and the lunch crowds were out in force. I was charmed. No hibernators here, my friends. For many of the city slickers, it was business as usual.
On the flip side, one thing that continues to absolutely kill all the charm of my western home is the complete and utter inability to remove snow and ice from the roads and sidewalks. Local homeowners and tenants can’t be arsed to pick up a shovel and clear a path, snowplows leave five centimetres on the roads, then cover it with gravel, claiming that it’s safer for your cars (until, of course, you slide on the stuff and go careening into a hydro pole), and ice melter is still a foreign phrase. And while I know that sprinkling calcium chloride flakes doesn’t usually amount to a hill of beans when the temperatures are so low, it wouldn’t kill you to give it a try.
Local snow removal by-laws are completely toothless, so sidewalks and roads are transformed regularly into hard, bumpy, extremely dangerous ice mountains and islands, with the occasional patch of concrete in between. Around our house we’ve shovelled our fair share and Ray has chopped, but with three months more of winter staring us in the face, I think I’m going to venture out to the closest Canadian Tire (10 kms away) and invest in my favourite little blue pellets. Maybe the town will notice, and add a little somethin’ extra to that gravelly crap that they spread after every snowfall.
Or I can just shut up, continue to walk like a penguin, and wait for spring like everyone else.
