O Canada
Janet Caplan, Sooke, BC
When snow falls, nature listens.
Snow days are not just for kids with toboggans. Their rare occurrence is even more exciting when you're an adult. The city pretty much shuts down due to huge volumes of blinding and drifting snow. That's what the radio announcer blares as he reiterates what the emergency services are reporting. Roads are buried, leaving car and bus traffic impossible. Subways and LRT lines are jammed or immobilized. There is no morning commute. "Stay home," the announcer shouts. "All businesses are advised to remain closed and citizens to stay off the roads." A serious matter, yes. And so we heed the warnings.
The scene of one such snow day was my hometown of Montreal. I was about twenty-two at the time, married and working my first full-time job. The snow began late on a Thursday afternoon, just in time for the afternoon commute. Heavy, wet snow came down hard as I entered the building's parking lot, ready to get into my co-worker's car. Three of us travelled together daily, alternating vehicles. Thankfully it was not my turn to drive. After pitching in to clear the snow off we sat in the car for ten minutes as it warmed up and the windows defrosted. Finally we moved on through the parking lot, windshield wipers working furiously. Our driver managed to edge his way into the crawling traffic that would remain with us for the next three and a half hours. Bear in mind that this was normally a twenty-minute drive along a city expressway.
We inched our way homeward along with thousands of others that evening. Every now and then we'd stop the car entirely so one of us could run out and clear the wipers of icy build-up: a common scene that evening. Rare for Montreal drivers, directional signals were used and respected: if you needed to change lanes or exit, no one cut you off. It seemed that the snow brought out the best in people. Inside our car we entertained one another with stories of the worst snowstorms, best toboggan runs and grandest snow forts we'd each built. We sang songs and played "Name That Tune." The three of us made it home safely that night: tired and hungry yet warmly happy. We were comrades, together against the storm.
The next morning, looking out our apartment windows, my husband and I knew that we, and likely most of Montreal, were stranded. The sky was bleakly grey, heavy snow continued to fall amidst high winds, and neither roads nor sidewalks were visible. The morning radio man loudly declared that the city's transportation services were inoperable and that police demanded that citizens stay indoors and off the roadways. Donny and I looked happily at each other, laughed and leapt back into bed for another hour or so of sleep.
By mid-morning, restless with being in the house, we decided to go out and brave the elements. I think that we wanted to "feel" the storm in our faces: the icy wet wind, the heavy snow on our feet. We dressed in our warmest winter gear and ventured forth.
With no moving vehicles in sight, and no sidewalk defined, we stepped into the broad expanse of roadway that bordered one side of our apartment building. We stood together in the stillness of a street that normally bustled with continuous traffic on its four lanes. There was neither sun nor clouds, and the air matched the sky in its greyness. So did the shoulder-height banks of snow; no definition existed between sky and land, just a blending of greys. We saw no one else and no other footprints. Here and there the shape of a car was visible under the snow and we could barely make out the newspaper and mail boxes that we knew stood at the corner. Looking up we saw low-hanging electrical wires burdened with icicles. Traffic lights flashed wildly out of sync. We moved on. Donny and I walked for a couple of hours that morning—it wasn't all that cold. But it was difficult walking and we probably covered little more than a mile. It felt like a no man's land, with not a soul in sight. I remember the eeriness of the day and what we said as we re-entered our safe and warm apartment. We wondered if the moon would feel like this—wintry, grey, icy and simply devoid of atmosphere.
We spent the remainder of our snow day snugly inside our apartment, reading old newspapers, watching news updates on TV, drinking hot chocolate and eating homemade brownies.
Snow days in Canada are a blessing and a curse. For kids it's a day off school but for the rest of us it's making sure everyone gets home safe and sound. Once that mission is accomplished, time may allow for a bit of fun knowing you're entitled, even supposed, to be playing hooky from the necessities of day-to-day life.
(850 words)