The End of Snow and Ice

About thirty years ago, on a train from Toronto to Ottawa, I was sitting beside an older woman whose husband’s job had brought her to Ottawa. Outside the train window, the sky was filled with snow and the woman, glancing at it, bemoaned the fact that she was now living in Ottawa, the snowiest capital in the world. Did I know that? she asked, the snowiest capital in the world. I didn’t. But I was happy. I had just moved to Ottawa for a job myself but unlike my seat-mate, I welcomed the return to snow after living in San Francisco for four years.

On 2 January this year, several friends sent me the New York Times article entitled “The End of Snow.” On 3 January, several people also sent me the article on the end of ice entitled “Waiting for Snow in the Netherlands.” On 4 January, my daughter’s birthday, she told me that her birthday had been good but it was strange to celebrate it without snow. Two days earlier she had taken the same train ride that I had so many years ago, only from Ottawa to Toronto, and she remarked that the landscape was bleak and brown when usually it was white and sparkling.

Today it is 5 January. When I look out my Ottawa window, I see a thin covering of snow in places but mainly there are only clumps of frozen dirt and sidewalks and streets the same colour as the grey sky. I am wondering what the year ahead holds.