The concept of winter vacations have always found me scanning the travel booklets that attempt to lure me south to Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean or other exotic ports of call.
I guess it’s only natural to someone who was born and raised in northern climes to heed the siren call of warm sandy beaches, swaying palm trees and the hypnotic motion of ocean waves ending their course lapping at your toes.
When winter comes knocking at my door with the first few frosty nights that kill off the last of the summer blooms only to be followed with unrelenting determination the first few dustings of snow my thoughts turn not to some tropical island but to my childhood home in Northern Ontario.
Where I was raised winter always came with a menacing blast in late September or early October as if to chastise us for having had so much fun in surrounding pine, birch and poplar forests or on the lakes surrounding the gold mining town that encompassed our entire world.
Usually by late October the first of the several feet of snow we would blessed with, or cursed with if you were an adult, was safely covering the ground until April or sometime May.
During the winters of we could expect several weeks of -60F cold snaps. If your family had money you would heat your house with coal. If not, you survived with an oil spaceheater that had to be filled five gallons at a time.
Still, we seemed to accept the coming of winter with some degree anticipation. Every school in our town had its own skating rink. And every winter we would rush down to Paul’s Second Hand Store and pick out a pair of used skates from a huge bin for .25 cents. If you had .50 cents you went to another bin where the skates were not as badly battered. Mine were always terminally distressed but it didn’t matter. At that time skates were not a fashion statement.
The problem with the school rinks, which were lit up at night with strings of bare 100 watt bulbs and surrounded by four-foot-high wood walls, were the unwritten rules of use.
For example, if you just went to a school rink other than your own without someone from that school, you could get beaten up. Or, if you didn’t show proper respect, like not leaving “their” girls alone from that school, you could get beaten up. In those days that was the extent of conflict resolution.
In retrospect getting beaten up was kind of like a social thing in our town, especially in the winter.
At that time we did not have nylon, waterproof clothes, at least none that ever crossed my path. We had wool. Wool pants, wool jackets, wool sweaters and wool socks.
A lot of us only had rubber boots to wear. Our parents bought them really big so we would grow into them. In the meantime you could pile two or three pairs of wool work socks on your feet and avoid frostbite. It was the same with our clothes. Under your jacket you would be clad in a wool underwear top, followed by a wool shirt and a wool sweater. We also usually had two pair of long underwear on under our pants.
Mitts, also knitted of wool, were always a problem because they would shrink to about half their normal size when the got wet. The result was they and would let your wrists get all red while making snowballs. The other problem was you smelled like a wet sheep when the snow melted off of you.
At our rinks we had rink shacks. These consisted of wood buildings with only an outer covering of boards. Around the inside walls were benches. Clothe lines criss-crossed the room like giant spider webs. In the middle stood a barrel stove that glowed red when the school custodian, usually named Bruno, stoked it up with wood.
Before heading home from an evening of skating, some the kids would dry their clothes on the lines and place their socks close to the stove to hasten the process. I remember some kids had their socks burn up after putting them too close to the stove.
But what I remember most in the rink shacks was the smell of the wet wool drying. It was like the smell of a thousand rams drying out after a rainstorm. While I had personally never witnessed such an event, I imagined that is what they would smell like.
Now back to getting beaten up for invading a foreign rink. I never heard of anyone getting seriously hurt on those occasions. Having experienced it once or twice myself, I finally figured out why. It was all that wool. As long as you covered your head, nothing could hurt you. It was like wearing one of those bear attack suits you read about today. The main downside was you couldn’t run away in the first place.
If you couldn’t stand the pressure of skating at the school rink, there were always the ponds. We had lots of ponds on the edge of town. Some formed at the mine tailings dumps. Others were really areas flooded by creeks or sheltered bays on the lake from which we drew our drinking water.
Sometime the school rinks would be taken over by the dreaded hockey players. It seemed to me these guys were all over seven feet tall and could skate faster than a speeding train.
When these guys got on the ice for a game of shinny the mere mortals among us simply left the rink and watched from the boards. Another unwritten rule. You never messed with the hockey players’ ice time if you wanted to retain a complete set of teeth and keep your still-developing bones free of fractures. So you always waited until after they were finished.
Interestingly our town sent more than 50 young men to play in the National Hockey League when there were only six teams and only two of them in Canada. I guess it was a good idea to let them have the rink.
Winters also meant we could hone our carpentry skills by building our own bobsleds. These consisted of a few plans and two sets of runners. One set was anchored firmly to the back, while the front set was allowed to swivel on a crude vertical axel. The contraption was guided by ropes tied to the front runners.
Obtaining runners was always a major obstacle to building a good sled. Some tried old skis. But others were a little more creative. In our neighborhood kids were always out looking for small sleds that were disappearing from their yards at an incredible rate.
Winter was also cabin building season. Many of the kids around town would head into the bush, build a rough structure from small trees, usual poplar, then spend a few nights in them cooking beans in fire blazing away in a small metal barrel that once contained arsenic or cyanide used to extract gold from the rock brought up from underground.
It’s a wonder 40 or 50 kids a winter were not asphyxiated or poisoned as a result. Somehow we all survived. But those days are now long gone. And maybe it is just as well. When looking back at our youth from a distance of many decades, we remember everything that was positive and fun.
Perhaps it was the experience of growing up at that time and that place that for many years had me looking south for a holiday destination.
Now that I spend most of my time in the Cariboo, I am having a change of heart about winter vacations. My friend Peter Lunn at 100 Mile Netshop directed my attention to a new website on his homepage titled www.CaribooWinter.com and I took a look.
In my old hometown winter travelers overtook the numbers of summer visitors a few years ago. This was due mainly to the proliferation of snowmobile trails that allowed riders to travel hundreds of kilometers from home.
The tourism folks in the Cariboo are taking a different approach by offering dog sledding adventure packages, ice fishing, backcountry skiing, hay rides and related winter activities. In my youth I worked as a dude ranch wrangler and had some of my best rides in the snow. Winter can be a great time for riding.
Winter visitors can also find a variety of accommodations for their holiday, but my choice is always a log cabin with a, wood burning stove. There is simply nothing cozier than wood heat on a cold night. The view of the Cariboo night sky is dazzling and I’m thankful I can experience it year round.
Two things I would like to do this winter, if possible. The first is to take a horseback ride into the woods, build a fire, boil up some water and have a cup of steaming hot tea. The second is to skate on a frozen pond with a few folks like myself who spend more time on their backsides on the ice than actually skating.
Even if I don’t get to actually do these things, I take comfort in knowing I can if I make the effort. You should really think of bringing your family up our way. The only thing I can guarantee you is you won’t be disappointed.
Bill McIntyre
Communications Specialist
FairForce Communications
e-mail: billmci@telus.net
Copyright © 2006
hosted by 100 Mile NetShop Ltd.
|
