Polar Plunge

By Lynn Dove

Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.

~Sinclair Lewis

When we moved onto our acreage just north of Cochrane, Alberta in the spring of 1994, we were enamoured by the 180-degree view of the Rocky Mountains to the west of us and the beauty of nature surrounding us. While planting my first garden and watching my children chase gophers around the yard I thought this had to be the most idyllic lifestyle I could ever imagine.

We spent many evenings that summer sitting on our deck, listening to the yipping of nearby coyotes, and later, when the leaves turned colour in the fall, we took long walks and marveled at the Northern Lights. Having grown up in Calgary, I knew winter was just around the corner, but after having spent those memorable first few months enjoying our new home, I pictured an equally tranquil winter scene, curled up by the hearth, sipping hot chocolate and watching silent snowflakes flutter by our window as we remained cozy inside.

We had just finished the Thanksgiving turkey in October when the north wind blew in strong and fierce. And the list began. The walls around our house were not as well insulated as we thought. As ice started to form on the inside of the windows, my husband added "replacing windows in spring" to the growing list of "to-do's." When the first major snowfall hit in November and the snow blower the previous owners had left us refused to churn through the cement snow drifts, my husband added "buy a bigger snow blower."

As the snow accumulated in front of our house so his tractor couldn't even clear a path, we parked our vehicles at the top of the driveway and trudged through knee-deep snow and minus twenty-degree temperatures to get to our cars. The weatherman called it a Polar Plunge. I had more descriptive terminology for the weather, as I slid on my backside, yet again, carrying groceries from the end of the driveway to our front door. The bruises on my derriere were starting to add up.

A couple days after Christmas, a Chinook blew in from the west. "Snow Eater," as the natives call it, chewed a huge swath of snow down our long driveway and we were finally able to move the cars into a warm garage. The melting snow ran in rivulets around our yard, and the temperature rose to a balmy 2 degrees Celsius. We wrestled the kids into their snowsuits and we built snow forts and snowmen and finally experienced the winter scene I had always imagined in our new home... at least for a few days.

On New Year's Eve the temperature plummeted, the snow fell yet again, and the frigid north wind whistled and whipped the house with ferocity. We watched helplessly as roof shakes blew across the yard. My husband added, "Replace roof in spring" to the now lengthy list. When our son's plastic sandbox blew past, I added, "Buy new sandbox too."

I had never seen six foot drifts before, but on New Year's Day there they were, like mountains in the middle of our driveway. With no snow blower to dig us out, we were in a quandary how to get the cars out of the garage again. My husband bundled up and started to shovel. The kids and I watched him from a window as he struggled with the heavy snow, the wind kicking up whirling vortexes of white twisters all around him. It was a valiant attempt but after breaking one snow shovel... I added that to the list... I thought our only hope would be for another Chinook to blow in or we would be snowed in forever. He pointed a mittened hand and yelled at me through the window, "Add... buy snow fence for next year!" and obediently I wrote that on the list.

My husband managed to find another old snow shovel in the garage and in a fit of insanity I thought I should go out and help the man. I don't know what I was thinking; perhaps it was the fact that he was braving the elements and I was warm inside. I pulled on my coat, toque, mitts and scarf and thought that my presence outside would somehow lift his spirits. We were a team and we would accept this snow-clearing challenge together, even if there was only one snow shovel between us.

No sooner had I stepped out the front door, than a powerful gust of wind blasted me from behind, and catching my winter coat like a sail, picked my body up and blew me head first into a snow bank. Try as I might to regain my footing, the wind kept battering me back until finally I had to crawl on my hands and knees to the front door where I finally collapsed in a heap. It was only my pride that was hurt, but my ears certainly stung by the sound of my husband's hysterical laughter and my kids waving and pointing at me. Still, I like to think that it was my "polar plunge" that was just the comic relief we all needed to get us through that long, cold winter.

http://www.chickensoup.com