A Child’s Memory of Winters in Canada

I came into this world in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada the end of May, 1930. My Mother often told me the story of how she had to struggle to the hospital when she knew I was on the way. There had been a late spring snowstorm in Edmonton. Blowing snow had drifted to such an extent against the front of the house that she could not push open the front door. She was able to push the back door open, climb a fence to get to the main street, and wait for a street car to take her to the hospital. Those pioneer women were tough.

Edmonton is called “The Gateway to the North”. My first memory of something special that winter offered us in Canada’s North West was the night my Mother took me outside to see the Northern Lights. I have no idea how old I was, probably four or five. I remember looking up at the sky. There were others too, all looking up. I could see these wavering green lights like a pale green curtain blowing in the evening breeze. We all stood silently in the cold night air and watched and then my Mother said it was too cold to be outside without a coat on and she took my hand and walked me back inside the house. I’m glad I have that one memory as I never saw the Northern Lights live again.

Winter is never the difficult season when you are a child that it can be when you are older and you worry about falling on slippery sidewalks or being annoyed that you have to brush all the snow off the car or have to shovel the walk. Back then, we were carefree and winter meant snow balls, snow forts, sliding on sleds or cardboard boxes down the hills, skating on home made skating rinks in backyards.

We would have weeks of below freezing temperatures. I remember our fathers would flood the back yards and make small skating rinks. I’m sure the surface was bumpy and rough, but we would gamely skate around the ice. No wonder Canadian boys and girls are good at hockey. They learned to play on terrible ice.

At certain times during the winter, the snow would have a density that enabled it to be cut into shapes. The temperature had to be cold enough so that the snow did not melt. I can’t remember using a knife to cut blocks of snow. Perhaps we sawed them with the cusp of our hands. However we did it, I remember piling up blocks of snow into a fort and cozily sitting inside the fort to wait for some unsuspecting passer by and then pelting the poor person with snow. It would just be flyaway snow, not hard snowballs as that took a different kind of snow, the kind that had somewhat melted and would stick together.

Boys were better at making hard packed snowballs than girls, but we all had fun. There was many a snowball fight to and from school. The worst punishment was to have someone rub your face in the snow.

Our mothers knew how to dress us to survive in the really cold weather. It was never too cold for us not to go outside and play. We wore baggy snowsuits that you could hardly move in, but they kept us warm. No one wore gloves. We all wore mittens and the mittens stayed put because they were joined together by a long knitted or crocheted cord that was pulled through our jackets. If we took off a mitten, we never lost it. It just dangled at the end of our hands.

There was one weakness to this system. There would be a bare space from the end of the mitten to the beginning of our snowsuit. That place on our wrists always got red and cold. Can you remember that one spot?

We all had sleds or toboggans. If not we made do with thick cardboard boxes opened up flat and used those to slide on. I lived near High Park in Toronto and there were great hills there. The hills ran down into Grenadier Pond, so named for some witless British Grenadiers who tried to follow a band of Indians and ended up drowning. We always said there was quicksand at the bottom of the pond that sucked the Grenadiers in. More likely it was their heavy uniforms that dragged them down into the mud.

By the time we came in for supper at night, our cheeks would be rosy red, our wrists chapped from the cold and our eyes tearing from the wind. Our mittens would be thick with snow and covered with little balls of ice. We would be ravenous for supper and then after supper we would throw ourselves on the floor in front of the radio to listen to Fibber McGee and Molly or Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

There were no “snow days” back then. It was a matter of pride that you went to school no matter what kind of weather. Most people lived near where they worked or where they went to school so you just walked as usual, only now it took longer as each step was through deep snow. If we could not manage the sidewalks we trudged in the ruts the few cars made.

Coal was used to heat the houses. Early in the mornings my father and grandfather would shovel out the ashes from the furnace and shovel fresh coal in. The ashes were put to good use. They were spread on the icy sidewalks and steps to keep you from falling on the ice.

Hoar frost. Now that’s a story we all know. I fell victim to its seduction one time. I saw a metal pole covered in it near my house. I stuck out my tongue to try what looked to be a delectable mouthful of white frost. Oh, No. My tongue stuck to the metal. I must have screamed. I can vaguely remember my mother coming out of the house probably shouting, “Get some hot water”, but by this time my own body heat had melted the frost and my tongue escaped with little injury. It’s a lesson, though, that none of us forget.

What about hanging clothes out on the clothesline in the winter and having them freeze as solid as a piece of wood? Does anyone remember that? I remember helping my mother bring these stiff clothes in. I would try to fold the sheets, but Mother said No, put them down the basement and let them dry there. It was all we could do to hang the frozen sheets on a basement line.

Meals were always very hearty in the winter. Mother would make homemade bread and homemade soups; tomato soups, barley soups, pea soups. They were so satisfying on a cold winter day. There would be jars of peaches or pears for dessert that had been put away in the fall.

We thought nothing of winter. Everyone was in the same boat. None of our friends or relatives went down south for the winter. No one could afford it back then. We made winter as pleasant as we could. There would be popcorn popped in an old-fashioned popper over the stove. Once in awhile Mother would make fudge. When the boiling brown sugar and vanilla and milk would reach the right temperature and form little balls, she would put it outside in the snow to cool before beating it to a creamy consistency, cutting it into squares and letting us eat it. Half would have walnuts as Mother liked them, and half would be plain.

Icicles were often hanging from the eaves of the houses or the roof of the porches. Fragile as they were, we admired their pristine clear beauty and would try to gently pluck one to hold as a lollipop and lick the cold end. Frost would decorate the bedroom and bathroom windows at night. I often traced the fern-like shapes as they grew and spread over the whole window.

Most of us remember making “angels in the snow”. There had to have been a fall of fresh snow, a perfect bed on which to fall over backwards and then brush our arms up and down in the snow to make the “wings”.

Heavy handmade quilts would be spread on our beds at night. They were so heavy I can remember struggling just to turn over, but they did keep us warm. We needed that warmth as the bathroom would be freezing before the furnace had a chance to spread warmth throughout the house.

I wonder if children nowadays will have pleasant winter memories as I do. Perhaps a “snow day” to them is a real treat. Perhaps a week in Nassau or Antigua is what gets them through the cold weather. Every season has its joys and hardships. I used to like winter more than I do now. Now I say to myself, thank goodness it only comes once a year, but I still don’t go down to Florida.