Sunday, January 27th, 2002 - 8:20 am MST
The high-rises of downtown Calgary float on a ice-crystal mist.
A few days ago I was far from Calgary. I was working in Mexico City on a two-week job. It was a pleasant place to be in Calgary's winter-time. Every day, at some opportune moment in the afternoon, I'd walk out with a few friends to seek some lunch and enjoy the soft sunny warmth of a beautiful day. I remember thinking just how like a summer's day in Calgary it was... and how different it must have been in Calgary at the moment of my musings.
When I flew into Calgary it was snowing and the temperature was -25°C. My car was covered in snow and hard to start in the cold. I drove home slowly on icy roads and through drifts of snow on the highway. I found a layer of snow twenty centimetres thick in my driveway. It then occurred to me that my friends in Mexico City, who had asked about Calgary's winter weather during my stay, would be interested in seeing some actual photographs of Calgary in winter. So here, together with my descriptions, they are.
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Sunday, January 27th, 2002 - 8:20 am MST
Down Bow Trail, turning east to approach downtown from the south. It was -26°C when I left home ten minutes ago. The sun's only been up for 15 minutes and twilight's hazy blue light softens the biting cold. The road is still snow-covered though broken by thousands of tire trails. Exhausted water vapour from all the home and skyscraper heating systems has condensed to ice crystals which hover in a cloud around the low-lying centre of Calgary. If this had been a weekday, I'd have travelled along this section of the road with a good deal more traffic, two hours earlier, while it was still quite dark.
Sunday, January 27th, 2002 - 11:30 am MST
Spruce trees are a feature of many Calgary front yards. This pair, which are taller by far than the owner's house, line a driveway. Dry, powdery snow from the falls of the last two days still rest on their branches and is a special trap for the unwary.
Sunday, January 27th, 2002 - 11:30 am MST
Brush this branch with the top of your hat or a careless arm and its load of snow will launch itself directly at the back of your neck. Even with the bright late morning sun there's little sign of any melting. It's still way below freezing.
Sunday, January 27th, 2002 - 11:35 am MST
Clearly no one's out for a ride yet this morning. Most winter mornings there are a few tasks to do before you can zoom off to work. Brush off the car, scrape frost from the windows, carefully start it and wait a few minutes while it warms up. Drive away slowly as the tires will have a frozen flat spot at the bottom which will only disappear after a few revolutions. A lot of cars are temperamental in the cold and won't start without a lot of special treatment. Many people have engine block heaters installed in their cars which they connect with long electrical cords to the power outlets on the outsides of their houses. The owner of this car has one. You can see the thin wooden frame with trailing power cords above the roof of the car. It was probably wise to plug in last night. Remotely powered interior heaters and remote starters are also very popular in Calgary. Also note the Christmas lights running along the house's rain gutters. These are a year-round feature of many Calgary homes. I think this is because one typically forgets to put them up until it becomes a cold and unpleasant task on a blustery December day. And in April one says to oneself, "If I take them down now, I'll only have to put them up again in a few months."
Sunday, January 27th, 2002 - 11:35 am MST
And here's a Calgary resident who's no doubt congratulating himself that his driveway-shovelling chore is almost done. You can see his ice-chopping blade lying on the driveway behind him. If one doesn't get to the shovelling soon after a snowfall then the feet of passers-by will have stamped a lot of the sidewalk snow into hard slabs or even sheets of ice that have to be slowly chipped away. And look at his shadow. Although it's almost noon the long shadow indicates that our winter sun is still very low in the sky.
To be accurate, I shouldn't leave you without a mention of Calgary's Chinook winds. Calgary is in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and the climactic conditions here frequently cause the appearance of warm, dry, Chinook winds at this time of year. When one starts the temperature can rocket from the -teens to 5°C, 10°C, or even 15°C in a few hours. Then even we can walk around the streets in our shirtsleeves. Sometimes then one even sees girls in bikini tops playing frisbee in the park - but I think that's more to attract newspaper photographers than to enjoy the game.
text and images ©2002 by Paul J.R. Brown