Canada’s Winter Wonder Land

Matthieu Beauchemin (Canada)

When you hear someone talking about Canada, the first thing that comes to your mind is probably the climate. You wouldn’t even think that life is possible when it’s –30 ^oC outside. And what about driving a car after a snowstorm that left over 60 cm? But that’s the environment that shaped the Canadian people and the climate that modified their way of life forever as they now live in symbiosis with snow and cold.

You have to live an entire winter here to know what I’m talking about. If you don’t know that season you could think that this weather kills every single part of nature. But that’s completely wrong! Winter is a wonder of nature in itself. It transforms and ugly rain drop into a wonderful snowflake falling slowly to the ground recovering everything: grass, roads, trees, and sometimes it even hides a large part of the houses, leaving only the roof.

Nevertheless life goes ahead and people cannot stop all their activities because of snow. That’s why many clever solutions have been found, over the years, to take snow out of the streets: scrapers, that push it on each side of the road; giant blowers that can swallow snow and then throw it back on people’s ground; trucks that cover every streets to spread salt or sand to keep cars from sliding on ice. On top of that, individuals have to adapt themselves too: at the beginning of November, they change their car tires to special ones made especially for winter road conditions and they have special snow brooms to clean their car windows after have fallen. These crazy weather conditions completely changed the way of life of Canadians, from one ocean to the other.

Moreover, winter is essential to the Canadian economy by bringing a considerable number of tourists here. What is more wonderful than walking the streets of the old city while some gently snowflakes are falling down onto your head? Absolutely nothing! Tourists come here for many other reasons too. Taking a ride on a famous ski-doo is a popular activity for them. Invented by Joseph-Armand Bombardier around 1900, this leisure vehicle consist in a type of all-terrain vehicle but has skis instead of wheels and is propelled by a spinning track. These engines can reach top speeds of more than 150 km/h but aren’t driven at more than 80 km/h in the provincial paths created especially for them. Using this type of transport, you can almost cross all the country: from British Columbia to Newfoundland and up to the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. You only have to follow paths that are even numbered as highways.

This season brings an unbelievable number of other for sports. Would you even imagine a Canadian without thinking about hockey? Surely not! Every little town or village here has is own arena where local teams can compete. The national winter sport of this country is a true religion for some people. The NHL (National Hockey League) Stanley Cup final is one of the most important sport events of the year. As a tale here says, "a Canadian learns how to skate before being able to walk." While there is no proof of this legend, it gives you an idea of the impact the sport of hockey has on Canada.

Besides hockey, other winter sports have significant impact on the Canadian society. Skiing provides a very good example. Many kids who were playing hockey now learn to ski, snowboard, snow blade, snow-scoot or snow-skates. Since Canada has two main mountain ranges (The Rockies and the Canadian shield), the country provides a lot of opportunities to practice these activities. Some amazing mountains are now known worldwide as Whistler-Blackcomb, Banff, Lake Louise, all located in western Canada. On the eastern side, you still have quite high ski mountains like Mont-Ste-Anne, Mont Tremblant and Le Massif that now has a trail meeting the Olympic standards.