Sub-zero Alberta?

Take off to the Great White North eh. Those famous wanna-be Canucks Bob & Doug Mackenzie had the Americans convinced it was frozen up here 365.

To brave typical Alberta winter can require layering of thermal shirt and long johns, woolly socks, wind-proof or snow pants, toque, scarf or neck warmer, ski mitts, even ski mask and goggles against the wind.

It's not the Great White North for nothing and before I found Baffin -40C rated boots I remember resorting to donning multiple pairs of wool socks.

That was a couple winters ago. Currently, the dress code is still ready for shorts weather.

Penguin hosers took all the cold this year so Bob & Doug need to do a reunion tour to update on the climate.

(Exhibit A walking on ice was taken in November 2009 -- I got cabin fever that year real bad.)

Christmas Day a friend in Calgary was complaining it was green and I had no sympathy coming from Victoria BC where it's a rainy Christmas regularly. Another friend wondered if we got skipped this year for winter.

I hadn't thought twice and figured it was a Chinook wind melting the fun of the tobogganing hill.

It was perfect weather for ice fishing, nice and sunny. I even did one of my last assignments of the year out on the lake. It only snowed hard in mid-November.

Yet in the past few years, I remember not wanting to leave the house voluntarily for weeks of December or January because the windchill was so frigid. I haven't even hit cabin fever yet so far, knock on wood... cabin.

The barometer is staying balmy so I'll reminisce on the signs of winter not appearing yet.

Had to kick my car doors to unstick them after frozen twice over-night instead of nightly.
Only been scared to be driving on overly icy roads a few times.
Have only driven in one blizzard, not weekly.
My heating bill is unseasonally low and that's okay.
Haven't gotten frost-bite practically for exposing any bare skin for two minutes.
My camera lenses have only fogged up once from a long assignment outside.
I haven't made any hot cocoa or taken any with me on photo shoots.
I haven't unpacked my parka and am still only wearing a polar fleece hoodie.
Have only used my snow shovel once to clear the driveway and three times for porch.
I've gotten colder in the hockey arena than when exiting it.

It's great for now. Yet I'm scared February is going to hit with a vengeance of blizzarding in the frozen wastelands. That or we'll have late snow in May -- not entirely unheard of around here.

Supposedly it's supposed to dip down to -15C by the end of the week. For now, it's a bit confusing and I had to double-check my direction of travel as I saw two flocks of Canadian geese flying north last week.

Suits me fine when I can't go home and decide whether I should declare it pre-maturely sandal weather.

P.S. I had to go through some of my archives even just to find some frosty photos. This last one was taken in late April 2007 when it started to finally defrost. I'm hoping it won't be a repeat deep-freeze.

P.S.S. I take full responsibility for jinxing this warm-front with my observation ^_^


~~ PLR ~~

Geese of a feather stick together and so should neighbours' block parties

By Philip Rushton

Whitecourt Star Reporter

Driving down to Arizona for the winter in a Greyhound Bus converted into a camper, Canada Geese still painted on the sides, Darlene and her husband Gary Pearce, known by their CB radio call signs, Nana and Poppa Goose, have always been meeting new people.

“I've always been a real people person,” said Darlene Pearce.

When they moved to Whitecourt in 1970, the Pearce couple didn't know anyone on windfall Drive, so they launched a block party the next summer.

“The town dropped off some barricades and we rolled out the barbecue,” said Pearce.

Having planned parties and get-togethers since the couple moved away from their hometown of Sundre Pearce led by example.

“Guess what, I’m your new neighbour and I want to come over for a cup of coffee,” Pearce told people next door.

When they moved in 1961, the couple first came up with the idea of block parties. The neighbourhood made its own barricades out of sawhorses.

When the couple moved to Whitecourt years later, everyone loved the idea as well and more than 50 people gathered on Windfall Drive.

“We even played a baseball game in the street,” said Pearce. “It was close, but none of us were very good so we didn't break windows.”

There was a potluck, and as people chatted around the barbeque, friendship formed.

Someone pulled out a fiddle during the evening and after the children went to bed at 10 p.m., the dancing continued with vinyl records.

Those three years of these block parties built bonds that endure as people were transferred and moved away.

Pearce decided to have a reunion 25 years later and made some phone calls to meet in a local restaurant in the autumn.

“It's really neat at the restaurant because waiters asked if we were all neighbours or what? They said, Really? People don't do that anymore.”

In the 1970s in a small town where everybody knew everybody, stay-at-home moms could watch over each others' goslings running through the backyards.

“We never worried about our children being out,” said Pearce. “It was a lot different world from nowadays, a very special time in our lives.”

Having celebrated their 50^th anniversary this May, Gary and Darlene Pearce naturally had a huge flock gathering for an entire week.

“People came from B.C. and up from the States where we follow the Canadian geese.”

Throughout the years others have kept up the tradition of block parties in Whitecourt with in the '80s on the Athabasca and in the '90s in a park square.

“It's a great way to meet your neighbours.”

Nana Goose out.

Photograph: Lake County Museum