Greetings from The Great White North!

And I do mean "white"! Snow as far as the horizon, and bloody cold as well.

I am posting from Watrous Saskatchewan which is about an hour an half south east of Saskatoon. Usually in my travels to the North I hit B.C. but I do hit SK every so often. I have been here several times but never in the winter, except this time: man is it cold!

The first few days it was 15 to 20 below, so I bundled up and went outside and walked around town. I lasted about 25 minutes and it was just too cold. Even with all the gear on, my face was freezing and my hands and feet started to go numb. Lest you think I was being a wimp being an LA guy, even the locals said it was "ass snapin' cold!" The next couple of days it "warmed up" to 0! And it made a huge difference, it was not so bad. Today it got up to 10 and after walking around all bundled up, believe it or not, I got hot.

But everyone here is very cool and I am enjoying drinking plenty of Canadian brew. Been wearing Kings gear which everyone here seems cool with (but did get a few stares in the airport in Calgary) and there is plenty hockey about: IIHL is happening as well as minor leagues. Go Winter Hawks!


Well, hope all is well back home with all of you and enjoy your warm weather.

Watch out where the Huskies go and don't you eat that yellow snow.

So I just got back. And yeah, I am happy to be home and all but there is a small part of me that is slightly bummed out. This morning I was in a small town that looked like a Norman Rockwell painting with old houses, snow all about and strangers who wave to you as they drive by. I get to LA, hit the crush of people at LAX and the have to deal with the crazy traffic on the way home.

But home is home and it is something like 50 to 60 degrees warmer here than where I was at so that is a plus.

But to be honest it was sort of cool to be almost in the middle of nowhere: no traffic, no calls, barely any texts, no annoying people to piss me off, I did not hear a siren or a helicopter for 7 whole days! I actually almost enjoyed the frigid weather. So if you can "check out" for a week or two and visit family and friends who live in out of the way places, do it.

Did you happen to catch a Sheepdogs show?

I did Xmas with the family in the Manitoba prairies once and I'll make sure not to do it again. Never been so damn cold in my life.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Homer Simpson

Did you happen to catch a Sheepdogs show?

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Unfortunately not, I was pretty much in a small town for most of the time. If they were playing it probably would be in Saskatoon, which I got to a couple of times, but no shows.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Salty Dog

I did Xmas with the family in the Manitoba prairies once and I'll make sure not to do it again. Never been so damn cold in my life.

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You gotta embrace the cold man!

A couple of times I did venture out when it insanely cold and I was informed I was nuts by the locals. "When it is this cold you only go out if you have to." Otherwise you are inside where it is warm and drink delicious booze to get even warmer. When it not so bad there is all sorts of cool stuff to do: we ran quads on one day and in heavy snow it was a blast. Then on a another day we ran snowmobiles (Ski Doos in the local vernacular) and that was even more of a blast. I cannot believe how fast they go, they just fly. Afterwards I was told all the horror of stories people who get killed "Ski Dooing", evidently a number of people die in snow mobile accidents in Canada and the US each year. Usually alcohol and excessive speed are involved.

They say the top of the line models can almost get to 90 mph. Anyway, the most gruesome way to go is when a rider is flying along in a field and does not see an approaching fence and hits it at top speed. Mind you, the fences are farm fences, posts every so often strung with barbed wire to keep cattle where they are supposed to be, so many a person has hit this type of fence and as it happens, the top wire is about head level to a snow mobile driver. So to have someone get decapitated by a fence wire every once in a while is not unheard of.

But my family and friends made sure we where in areas they knew very well so I kept my head.

canada is definitely effing cold in the winter. i went to quebec/montreal/ottawa at the end of january '09 and while i enjoyed the trip, it confirmed to me that i would never want to live in that kind of weather. we went tubing at the winter festival in quebec city. that was SO FUN, BUT... i took my glove off to hold on to the handle of the innertube and by the time i got down to the bottom of the hill (it couldn't have been more than a couple minutes), my hand couldn't move it was so cold. i had never experienced it before so i kind of freaked out worrying my hand would fall off or something.
the snow in that part of canada is real slushy, too.
another fun thing was skating on the rideau canal though.
unfortunately, i couldn't really get drunk to keep warm there. every time i had a beer, i got a massive headache. i think i got a 24 oz.er at the sens game and couldn't finish it because i kept getting sicker the more i tried to drink it. such a weird phenomenon. came home and found out it was because i was pregnant.

i hope to go to canada again... in the summer though!
your post makes other parts look interesting. :)

Visiting my dad in Calgary in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to the cold. It's a dry cold in Calgary though. Last year it was 28 below and I got away with along sleeve shirt and a decent coat. Skating on an outdoor rink is going to be awesome.

Take off, ya hoser.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Yeah, it being dry makes a huge difference. In Saskatchewan and Alberta it is generally dry and the snow is powder so, while being freakin' cold, you can dress for it and stay warm and dry. Back east, or so I have been told, it is a wet cold and slushy snow and it can be miserable, especially in the Great Lakes region where the wind blows across the water and is just frigid.