You can't get too much winter in the winter. (Robert Frost)
Recently, I've been laughing a lot at myself and the questions and worries I had a few months ago about how we were going to survive the cold winter in Montreal. Admittedly, and as every Montrealer kept telling us, we would be gone before the real cold hit, so really I shouldn't have been so stressed about it. But when it's an unknown, and anything lower than 5C in winter is the unknown for a Sydneysider, it's difficult not to. Ah, how far I've come! Here are five things I've learnt about proper winter living.
1. Why the plant tying and covering? When it started getting cold, properly cold, like around 0C, people started covering the plants and hedges in their front yards with heshan and tying hedges with string. I thought it was just an aesthetic thing but now that there are regular snow falls that cover everything and sit heavily on those very plants and hedges, it all makes sense. The plants are protected from the heavy snow and the piles of snow pushed from the road by the snow ploughs. What I don't understand, still, is why some plants aren't covered up?
1. Why the plant tying and covering? When it started getting cold, properly cold, like around 0C, people started covering the plants and hedges in their front yards with heshan and tying hedges with string. I thought it was just an aesthetic thing but now that there are regular snow falls that cover everything and sit heavily on those very plants and hedges, it all makes sense. The plants are protected from the heavy snow and the piles of snow pushed from the road by the snow ploughs. What I don't understand, still, is why some plants aren't covered up?
2. Where does the snow go? It had never even crossed my mind that for every snow dump there would need to be snow removal. When it snows in Jindabyne, for example, in the Snowy Mountains of Australia, the snow quickly turns to slush and washes away when it rains the next day. Not so here. Snow stays put until the snow ploughs move it into piles on the side of the road, and this is repeated each time it snows. Every few days, the tractors come by and remove the piles of snow into dump trucks and semis and it's taken away. We have a new game when we walk around Montreal: spot the snow truck...SNOW TRUCK! Oh, and I've also learnt to get out for a walk in the fresh snow quickly, before the ploughs come around again! My sister and I have even been known to walk on the uncleared side of the road on purpose just so we can walk on the slippery, squeaky snow!
3. Do I need to wear my whole wardrobe to keep warm in -20C? Walking around in -20C isn't so bad as long as the wind doesn't pick up. Then you'd better hope you brought your good thick scarf to cover your face or you'll start to feel your nose and cheeks go tingly then numb. And if you're stationary for any period of time, like waiting for a bus or standing on the curbside watching Santa's parade, then the cold is going to get to you. First your feet, then your fingers, then slowly the rest of you will start to shiver. But this takes a long time and usually it's just a matter of popping into the nearby Starbucks for a short double shot latte with cream and chocolate to make things better. And maybe an éclair au chocolat too.
4. What do snowflakes really look like? We found out one Sunday when we had a snowstorm and it snowed continuously for more than 24 hours. One day we had a thin layer of snow everywhere; the next we had half a metre! As the storm calmed and the last snowflakes were falling, we caught some of them on our jackets and were blown away by how beautiful they were. I'd never seen individual snowflakes in Australia before. Maybe they're too small to see. But here they were big and small and looked exactly like the pictures at Christmastime!
5. Is it possible to acclimatise to the cold over time? Yes, I think we do, and temperatures that used to feel cold don't anymore. For example, a few weeks ago I walked home from work, usually takes about 45 minutes, in the first real cold of -14C. It was fairly windy too, and about 25 minutes into my walk I started to feel my face tingle and my nose and cheeks stinging and going numb. Long before, my hands and toes had also lost their feeling. Then, just today, in -19C with a wind chill of -25C, my nose hadn't even started to go numb after 30 minutes of walking. I wasn't dressed any more or less warmly and the only distinct difference was the fact that I was wearing my new mittens instead of my leather gloves that I wore a month ago. I was wearing the same boots with two pairs of socks, leggings under my jeans and 3 layers under my coat. I had on my cardigan's hoodie and my coat's hood closed up too. Just like last time. But I wasn't cold and I kept all the feeling in my outer extremities, including my nose and toes. So, yes, I have certainly acclimatised I think!
Have you ever lived in a cold place? What things made it different from other cold places?
Have you ever lived in a cold place? What things made it different from other cold places?