Growing up in a winter wonderland

Although I live in suburbia Toronto, I grew up in a small town north of Toronto called Penetanguishene. Today we woke up to about a foot of snow (technically I should say 30cm, but the metric system has never quite grown on me when referring to length and distances).

At 6:00 am this morning, bleary eyed and sleepy, my husband was outside shoveling the drive. It was still snowing however, and trying to clear the snow was like fighting a loosing battle. As he would clear one path of the white fluffy mess down to the black pavement below, he would start the next path only to discover the pavement that was cleared only moments ago had been swallowed up by the snow monster and was once again, a blanket of white.

I remember the days when we wouldn’t curse the white stuff, but actually look forward to when it would snow. That was when we were kids though, a time when responsibilities and hard labour like shoveling were not issues we concerned ourselves with. Sometimes I wonder what winters will be like for our child. The Toronto area certainly does not receive any consistent snow fall, but rather sporadic patches enough to jam up traffic and plant a perma scowl on the faces of those who are not used to the snow.

Penetanguishene on the other hand, it located in a snow belt, and there is never a shortage of the white stuff in the winter. In fact, I can remember plenty of Halloween evenings trick or treating where there was snow on the ground already!

I hope we will be able to create some fond winter memories for our child. Some of my favorite childhood memories are from a time when I could play freely in mountains and mountains of snow. Here are a few of my favorite childhood snow memories.

The Snow Igloos:

Penetanguishene got a lot of snow! So much snow in fact, that my dad would use our snow blower to blow all the snow into an immense pile of white. He would do this for a couple of days, snow blow, let it compact, snow blow, let it compact, until we had a pile almost as tall as the house. The giant snow pile was to be me and my brothers very own IGLOO! We would spend days digging out the center with a drive as energetic as that of an escaped convict tunneling their way under a jail to safety. Our snow igloos, looking back, probably weren’t the safest snow forts to be playing in, but boy were they fun. And it’s true! You do stay warm in an igloo!

Mountainous Snow Cliffs:
I remember a particularly bad year for snow (or good year if you asked any of the kids). My dad actually had to snow blow a spot for me to wait for my bus. It was about the width of a slow blower (around 3 feet) and the cliffs of snow on either side of me had to be at least 10 feet tall. I would stand between my two little snow cliffs to wait for my bus feeling like the coolest kid of the block. I mean, who else had a dad that created a cool bus stop like that?

Walking to School in the Snow Uphill (Both Ways):
Thinking back, I don’t know where my brother and I got the energy to brave the snow like we did. Just like all Grandpa’s tales from “back in day”, my brother and me had to walk to school, uphill (both ways), with one shoe and a 29 books on our back. Well, it wasn’t that bad, but there is one occasion that stands out in my mind. A couple feet of snow had fallen the night before, and by the time we had to leave to walk to school, none of the sidewalks were plowed. Like the good little tykes we were, we didn’t walk on the road because we knew that would not have been safe, so we trucked through snow up to our knees.

What a workout that must have been! Tired and out of breath, my brother glanced ahead and noticed there was a snow plow heading in our direction. If we weren’t out of the way by the time it passed us, we were in for a good snow in! Frantic not to get buried, we attempted to run for safety. Our little hearts pounding and our lungs at full capacity, we ran as fast as our little legs would carry us (which wasn’t very fast considering we were already knee deep in snow). I remember feeling like I was running in slow motion and that the inevitable was about to happen. Finally, fatigue overcame us, and the snow plow passed us without a second thought and buried us even deeper in the snow. The worst part was, the somewhat discernible sidewalk that was once ahead of us was no longer. The plow created so much snow that continuing on would be impossible. We had to cross over to the other side of the road if we were to continue. (I bet you can see where this is going…)

We looked both ways, and made is safely across the road, laughing and giggling about what had just happened. We were not far from the school, when we heard a familiar rumbling behind us. The snow plow was coming back to do the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD! We were doomed!

We didn’t even bother that time around to try and high tail it out of there to safety. There was just too much snow slowing us down. We sat and waited for our destiny. The plow came, the plow saw, the plow went and we were buried.

Just think, we hadn’t even made it to school yet. Our day had barely begun. If I had a day like that now, I would have packed up and called it quits the first time I got buried under snow. Cancel that, I would have looked out the window at all the snow I had to walk through and called in sick! As a kid, even though I was spent and cold, I was still happy to keep on trekking. (My how times change).

The Infamous GT Snow Racer:

Of all the various ways kids could find ways to entertain themselves in the snow, nothing beat the fast and furious power of the GT snow racer. Toboggans and crazy carpets were for the meek! If you wanted downhill adventure and speed, the GT was the only way to go. If you were feeling especially courageous, building a large “jump” on the toboggan hill never failed to spice up your ride down with a few moments of airborne euphoria followed by a large brain rattling collision back onto the ground below. I’m not convinced these GT snow racer contraptions are the least bit safe. Their braking mechanism isn’t exactly useful and they did pick up speeds that left all the crazy carpet and toboggan toting kids to eat your dust (or shall I say snow), but then again, is voluntarily hurtling yourself down a hill at high speeds ever the brightest thing to do? Probably not, but tobogganing was a favorite winter pastime of mine, one I hope I will get to share in the adventure of racing down a hill with my child someday soon (But we’ll be sticking to the crazy carpets this time around).