Often, disparaging things are said about winter, but I believe that winter is one of the best seasons — second only to summer. Sure, sure, it’s cold as fuck, the roads are icy and most people have to lather themselves thick with lotion to avoid dry, raw skin, but so what? In Manitoba, spring means flooding and wet, dirty streets, while autumn is a three-month stretch of depressing brown and grey tones with nothing but Halloween and — for some — shooting birds out of the sky to look forward to.
When I was a child, winter meant snow forts, snowball fights and snowmen. We had a classic wooden toboggan, a faster plastic one, a GT and a couple crazy carpets. Hours were spent in the cold, racing down the small hill across the road that dropped onto a frozen creek. Face washes were administered regularly, and battles for the crown of king of the hill waged on any snow-bank available.
Winter also brings hockey season to millions of Canadians. I played every season from grade three through 10, waking up in the dark to drive down to the local rink or out to one of many hamlets and small towns, from La Glace, Alberta to Tumbler Ridge, BC to skate. Once, we drove all the way to Edmonton for a tournament, and I had the pleasure of watching Doug Gilmour and the Toronto Maple Leafs decimate the Oilers on home ice. Playing hockey as a kid was awesome, and I will be forever grateful that my dad spent all that time and money dragging me out of bed to play what Peter Gzoski once called “the game of our lives.”
As I grew older, and hit middle school, the ski hill outside of town replaced the toboggan run and the rinks as the centre of my universe come December. I practically lived at the hill from Thursday evening until Sunday afternoon when they closed shop for the week, returning to my parents’ home only to sleep away the hours between closing and opening. When I was old enough, I got a job manning the T-bar so that I could justify — and afford — the hours spent on the slopes.
After graduating, I made the mistake of jumping directly into post-secondary education — briefly — rather than taking a year or two off to live the dream of working only to ski through the winters. Some of my buddies from high school did just that, moving to hills in southern British Columbia, working nights at gas bars or kitchens, and logging over 100 days on the slopes. Add the party atmosphere of ski towns to the pure delight of shredding the slopes, and you cannot possibly imagine a better way to spend a winter. If you can, I’d love to hear what it could possibly be.
Even though I’m now closer to 30 than I am to 20, I still take plenty of pleasure from these white, frozen months. Living across the road from the longest skating trail on Earth, I naturally make good use of my hockey skates, despite the fact that I haven’t suited up fully for a game since high school. I’ve spent many evenings cross-country skiing up and down the Assiniboine, and my cheap, Canadian Tire snowshoes see regular action as well.
With so many beautiful parks within driving distance of Winnipeg, there is no excuse not to take a day off and explore the winter wonderlands these places become after a good dump of snow. Sure, the wind chill might be brutal, but it beats sitting indoors, bitching and complaining about the goddamn weather.
Of course, summers in Manitoba are unbeatable, and winter cannot truly compare, but really, who gives a shit? If you live on the prairies, you will have to deal with winter, one way or another. Short of moving to Vancouver — and who can afford that — there is no escaping it. Why not make the most of it?
