So, I promised that I’d try to file a new short column every week, and then promptly failed at that.
Some things intruded, including being laid off from my job. I’m now the former editor in chief of the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix — they are two excellent papers with great news teams. Now, I’m not going to go on and on, but the layoff process now is cold: your boss delivers the news on video link and then promptly exits the call, and an HR representative handles the rest. And the HR rep is someone you can’t even get angry with, because it’s not their decision and none of it is in their hands anyway. Meanwhile, you’re being detached from all of the company’s computer systems, and you’re left all alone with the questions of why.
Was it something I did? Was it something I didn’t do? Was it just being in the wrong place at the wrong time? I’ll tell you this: it’s a rollercoaster I don’t recommend for anyone.
There, I’ve said my piece on that for now. On to other things.
Two winters in, I’m finally getting used to Saskatchewan cold, and the way that the snow is far more than a temporary palette, easily erased by thaw. In Newfoundland, winter snow is as changeable as the tide: most winters, if it doesn’t ebb and flow from deep wet heavy snowfalls to near-bare ground at least 10 times or so, it isn’t a normal winter. (This year, it’s very much not a normal winter on the Avalon peninsula, at least.)
Here, though, the steady below-freezing temperatures keep the same snow for long periods: I can honestly say that Saskatoon snow has demonstrated how much urine the neighbourhood dogs distribute and how often they distribute it. Sharp corners and particular trees are dosed and re-dosed regularly, so that, well into the winter, you feel almost besieged by frozen cornices of dog pee.
But outside the city, the light, infrequent snow and the steadily cold temperatures mean that tracks in the woods stay day after day, week after week, erased only by wind, new snow, or the rare melt — there’s only really been one day of melt in weeks now, and plenty of time below -20.
You can, like in the picture above, spot the moment that a grouse lands, switching from wings to feet, aerial becoming terrestrial without a hitch. Cross country ski trails boast spots where huge moose cross over or even travel along the newly-groomed trail for several strides, leaving their side-plate-sized tracks inches deep or more into the snow.
And you see all of that without actually seeing any wildlife other than the seed-questing black-capped chickadees and the occasional hectoring and offended squirrel. Deer and coyotes are numerous: their tracks suggest everything from straight-line escapes to, in the coyotes case, the curlicues of play. But you don’t actually see them.
All in all, the effect is one that, at all times, even when you feel the most alone on the silent woods trail, you are surrounded by watching eyes. That you are the noisiest creature in the neighbourhood, the bully on the block, the one who does not belong.
And that, from mouse to grouse to deer, the seemingly-empty aspen woods, with their greenish trunks and black bark knots, are teeming with life.
Back soon, I hope.
Does anyone ever get used to Saskatchewan winters? I have lived here most of my life (with a beautiful, all-too-brief year in St. John’s) but I confess it never would have once to me to write “you feel almost besieged by frozen cornices of dog pee”! Great stuff 😊