B Flat

Snow has finally cashed in its rain-cheque and arrived in town. Our world is gently dusted in the soft flakes of fresh, new snow — a real powdered sugar vibe, only much less sweet. It’s time for snow; we’ve had frozen weather for almost a month already, and when you live this far north, winter just doesn’t feel like winter if there is no snow to accompany the icebox temperatures.

Snow means it’s also time to swap out the summer paws on our sled dogs for their grippier and more weather-resistant winter paws. I’m kidding; we don’t have dogs or sleds. Well, some of us have a pet dog, like anywhere else in North America, but ours is most definitely not of the sled-pulling variety. He’d be fine being pulled on a sled, but it’d take far too much effort and concentration for him to actually pull a sled.

With the snow very likely sticking around for the season, the time has come to swap out our summer tires for the winter tires. All-season tires work, but dedicated winter tires do usually work better. Because of the softer rubber compound, they grip far better at our ridiculously low ambient temperatures and inspire so much more confidence on the road while dodging the slipping and sliding All-Season believers. Each to their own, whether you like driving safely on the road and meeting all your time commitments, or whether you enjoy doing some amazing macrophotography of the snow-covered flora and fauna in the ditch to calm your racing heart while waiting for a Good Samaritan with a long enough tow rope to pull you out to pass by on the other side, mainly because he couldn’t stop in time due to the slippery road conditions you’d been attempting to ignore.

That’s one basic rule for survival when living in the remote North: if someone is parked on the side of the road with hazard lights on, you stop and check on them. At the temperatures we get, you can freeze yourself quickly if you do, in fact, have vehicle troubles, and the more immigrants we have in our area, the more people we have who are traveling these sometimes crazy roads ill-prepared. You don’t leave the house in a hoodie and sneakers to go driving when it’s -25°C, and for sure not when it’s -35° or -40°C, unless you bring all the warm clothes along. You’ll be one abominable snowman or woman with extreme frostbite in fairly short order if your car has a problem and you have to walk for help, but you forgot to bring warm boots, snow-pants, parka, gloves, and toque.

Anyway, stay warm til next time.