An Old Town in a Modern World

Dad phoned me the other day when he got back from the Cayman Islands (a beautiful place, to be sure). He said it was around 90 degrees every day. Convert that to Celsius and you're at about 30 degrees. Right now it's -26 here in Banff with windchills forecasted for tomorrow as low as -55. That's an 85-degree difference - you could almost boil water in the temperature difference alone!! Whew!

Just how cold is -26, anyway?

Well for starters, windchill starts to mean both more and less at the same time. You get a light breeze by a passing car in -26 degree weather and your windchill plummets you 10 degrees or so. So having a windchill of -55 doesn't really mean that there's a strong wind - just that it's FREAKING COLD.

Walk outside and the fluids in your nose freeze your nose shut (seriously!)

Walk outside, take a deep breath, and be welcomed by a coughing fit as the fluids in your lungs temporarily flash-freeze.

They shut down the ski hills. Yea! They did! 2 reasons here. First is, naturally, safety. THe hills are well into the -30s because of their altitude, and remember what I said about windchill at cold temps? Now do the same thing at high skiing speeds and I'm sure you're looking at absolute zero all over your face. Secondly, the runs you go on in between the mandatory hot-chocolate break after every run aren't even very good.

You see, skiing and boarding rely on a small film of water building up between your skiis and the snow - it negates a good deal of the friction. At these temperatures, it's too cold for that to form. Secondly, the shape of snowflakes change into little barbed things that grip your skiis when you ski. The final result is that you simply don't move out there. (Ever wondered why snow squeaks when you step on it once it gets cold enough? Same things)


So long story short - it's really cold. Tomorrow is set to be even colder with windchills of nearly -60. It happened very quickly. Bonnie and I went skiing yesterday. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera (again), but it was a great day. Lots of fresh powder (a foot over the last 2 days) and pretty good visibility. When we arrived at the hill at about 10:00, it was -6. When we left at about 2, it was -17. By dark that night it was beneath -20 and by bedtime we were down to -26. Woke up this morning and it was -36 BEFORE windchill. I'll tell you what, my car did NOT want to start. I think it had given itself up for dead.


With the cold, you get some pretty neat things though. The sky all day today was an odd light blue color, that almost looked like it was frozen. All the trees are iced over, of course, and the sky, though cloudless, looked somewhat cloudy from the ice crystals in the air (yea that water vapor in the air freezes too). And then there's just that there is very little movement outside. People don't like to go out there because, well, it's freaking cold, and the animals just seem to stay put as best they can. Awesomely quiet all day, though.

I stepped in to the little coffee shop next door to the internet cafe to pick up some pastries to munch on through my ship. It's a quaint, old-style place with a little bar by a large front window like that kind you would expect to see in old Christmas movies. The name is printed in arched, gold type right on the window and is completely wood-framed. The door is right next to it, an old wooden door with those little wooden crosses in it. The constant opening and closing of the door caused the shop to be fairly chilly, so everybody was sitting in there with hats and jackets on, and clouds of steam coming from every drink in the place. It was 5:00 in the afternoon and nothign was moving outside the window, and, despite the noise of the conversations, the place was entirely peaceful - like an old-tyme family coming home from work and school, taking off their boots, and sitting down for coffee in front of the fire. When you least expect it, this town conjures up these special little moments that just keep you saying "what a place to be"