I love winter, I really do.
Or…rather, I love snow.
I don’t love Vancouver winters.
They are sort of neurotic, high maintenance, full of stupidity.
Or …rather…Vancouverites in winter are.
The typical Vancouver comment is something along the lines of “Oh, I like snow, so long as it stays up on the mountains where it belongs.“
This is Canada. We are a winter country. Everywhere except the south western corner of it. That’s the little corner that the world makes fun of when winter makes an appearance. And to be fair, there is a pretty solid reason.
It’s embarrassing.
I once lived in the West End of Vancouver, about a block from where I worked. I was (obviously) the emergency contact if the alarm when off in the middle of the night. And it did a couple of times…those are entertaining stories in themselves…..but that’s not this story. One day, way back then, the woman I worked for was having a bit of a meltdown in the store because “the forecast was for some snow“!!! She told me that the last time she had been driving and a few flakes started to fall (nothing on the road here!!!) that she’d had to roll down the window because she started hyperventilating…. I recall asking her to please stay home, I’d manage the store if she’d just NOT drive from Deep Cove to the West End if it snowed.
It’s kind of stupid here.
All that aside, when it snows and it actually sticks to the ground, the smile pretty much can’t be wiped off my face.
The temperature dropped over last weekend, and water started to freeze. Monday and Tuesday I did a couple of canyon walks and I was enjoying the scene of frozen water along the paths.
The forecast changed mid week….and the snow crept in…the world got even prettier and my smile got bigger.
Typically I work downtown on Wednesdays and Thursdays….but with a pretty solid dump of winter set to arrive it was smarter to stick closer to home and work from the hatchery. It was a reasonable hunch that the transit system was about to break as soon as the white stuff started to fall, history is a pretty good predictor of that.
I was slow to get going on the first day, and I was a bit miffed that I didn’t cut first tracks on a couple of my trails. I did get to be the first on a couple…but not all.
I passed Abby’s Dad (Abby is a big black standard poodle, I have no idea what her owner’s name is!) shovelling his driveway at the upper end of Capilano Park road on the way to the hatchery. We exchanged good mornings. It was a bit nippy down at the hatchery; my office has single paned glass, so a pot of tea and a sweater was in order, but the scene outside was so pretty.
At the end of the day I walked back up the trails. Honestly, 1cm pretty much cripples this city, so it’s a bit of a surprise when the end of the snowfall leaves 25cm (~10 inches) on the ground.
On the other side of the coin…..walking home I passed a woman shovelling, or trying to shovel, her driveway on the park road. She was basically putting her shovel in at one end of the driveway and trying to push everything all the way across. Now, to be fair, maybe she’d seen that on YouTube or something, because it DOES work…depending on the nature of the snow. But this is Vancouver snow, at only around -2C. So it’s perfect snowball snow…meaning it’s heavy and full of moisture. That snow, when 10″ deep, really doesn’t push well. You have to scoop and throw. I almost stopped to demonstrate, but then remembered that this was the same person who, in last years’ snowfall event was out shovelling with a dustpan when a broom would have probably been equally effective. All in all…at least she owns a shovel now.
I smiled, said hello, and kept walking.
One driveway later I encountered Abby’s Dad….shovelling….. I said “Still here?” He leaned on his shovel to catch his breath “Third time today!“
He is smart…when this much heavy snow falls in Vancouver, you’re an idiot to wait until it stops. He’s not an idiot. Clearly.
Crossing the street in winter is taking your life in your hands.
Oh, let’s be serious…crossing the street in any weather, day or night, in Vancouver, is taking your life in your hands.
But in the snow, I don’t step out onto the street until I can see the car has fully and completely come to a stop for me.
Across Capilano Road and the next fun filled obstacle course awaits.
Sidewalks.
The typical way most Vancouverites manage snowfall is to wait for it to go away. I can just imagine the conversations in these homes.
“Chad, what is that stuff, it’s making me uncomfortable, can you just make it go away? I need a safe space! Can’t you do something? Call the District, they shouldn’t allow this, how am I going to go get my triple shot low fat half sweet caramel macchiato!”
“Oh Karen, it’s ok, we’ll just stay in our safe space and pretend it isn’t happening. Eventually it will work itself out.”
These are the houses where the driveway isn’t cleared, the sidewalks aren’t cleared, and there is nary a footprint going in or out…for two days. These are the “Oh my god let’s just turtle” types.
Then there are the winter lovers. I came around the corner on the way to work that first morning and encountered a small boy, probably six or seven years old, wobbling along with a snow shovel and flailing around with a big smile on his face. Behind him was his dad, far more effective with his winter tool…and a big black lab bounding towards me, snow covering its face after it had stuffed it into a snowbank. Bringing up the rear was the daughter/sister, sort of being unhelpful, flinging herself into the snow with abandonment. It was awesome and Dad had a huge smile and big greeting for me. These are the “I love winter” types.
Next up we have the homes where the residents have made their way to their vehicle and driven out without any other effort. The driveway is not shovelled. The sidewalks are ignored. If the plow went by earlier, you can see where there was a bit of a vehicular struggle to bash through the pile left behind by the District. These are the “I refuse to acknowledge the presence of any anomaly, because I do not appreciate having to change my standard behaviour” types.
Finally, we have the ones that irritate me. The ones that see the snow, clearly own a shovel, and yet demonstrate completely oblivious and terribly selfish behaviour. As I slog from well shovelled sidewalk section, to unshovelled sidewalk section, and so on…this type is the worst.
Across the street and down a couple of houses is a resident who shovelled their driveway, but not their sidewalk. A for effort to make their own life easier, fail for considering others needing to navigate the front of their property.
Like….come on…there are all sorts of people around here with mobility issues and you’ve just made it impossible for them to navigate the streets safely. It’s just…obnoxious.
Honestly, it was enough that when I came home I “almost” grabbed a shovel and went across the street with it…thinking “how great would it be to shovel their sidewalk and throw all the snow into their driveway“!
I didn’t.
But it might have been awesome.
And then…..our two day winter comes to a messy end.
I do love snow…when it’s fresh. But Vancouver sucks because almost always, after a pretty snowfall, comes “The Mess”.
In other words, it rains.
And it turns 10 inches of pretty white snow into 2 inches of slurpee.
That was a messy walk to and from work on Friday; luckily my boots are waterproof. On the upside, the weather this week made for hikes to and from the hatchery that were double the exercise value than normal.
How was that Lenora? 🙃
