Winter Fog
FTLComm - Tisdale
November 26, 1999
Yesterday's snow brought to an end what seemed like an endless fall here in Saskatchewan. The normal condition for this part of Canada is to see snow by Halloween and it should be permanent on Remembrance Day. Most people do not think we are really into winter without a coating of white stuff and the winter to bring in the new year has begun with yesterday's light coating. However, it was enough for the die hard snow mobile types to get their machines out even if it was to just see
if they still would run. Last evening the sound of two cycle engines rang through the town like the call of some primeval sourcerer back to haunt another season.
This morning the damp air hangs over us like the sky has a bit of a virus and this is its cough. The wind is still and you can barely see to the end of a block. But just as the mystery of green grass and sparkling aspen leaves tantillise us in the spring so does the crystalline fascination of frost.
This picture is untouched, just the way the camera captured the dull gray of the morning fog with bits of frost caught on antenna and spruce needle alike.
There is a kind of confidence that is sparked in every Canadian when winter comes, the realisation that life has changed and new challenges await and that for absolutely certain, somehow we will make it through the still and the cold, the raging knife edged winds and curtains of crusted snow. We will watch for the tests of our courage and dare winter to throw at us its worst from which we will create our own legends to tell of our victory and how "in the winter of 99, oh that was a winter, the snow go sooo deep....." The confidence and kindness of the typical Canadian is rooted in the mystique of winter.
