SPARE ME the Japanese pium tree biooms, the crocus, the snowdrop, the six ard a half millicn daffodils which people in Victoria who have nothing better to do are now counting and chalking up on billboards. I seek winter. Ironbound winter with blowing snow ihat lashes bare cheeks and fill the eyes with cold tears. Wiater raging, winter calm, winter white and glaring in the noon sun; winier silent, winter - desolate, winter frightening and-.- winter lovely. but always winter, magnificent. -” . . I sing the praises of winter with Gilles Vigneault, the Quebecer: My road is not a road It’s the snow. My country is not a country It's the winter. Sweet, clear, cold memory br- ‘ings back a large, handsome man, -*~ a Slavey Indian, who walked up to my car out of the midnight darkness when 1 was driving an ice road to Great Bear Lake. His dark face had three white blazes. They were his strong white teeth, the heavy frost on his eyebrows and the delicate frost that also lay on his eyelashes. It was S0 below the night he made me the gift of a fresh cari- bou tongue for my breakfast meal. He was a healthy, happy man and the cruel immensity of the Arctic night rested on him as lightly as the frost on his eyelashes, ‘ Canada was made for winters and winters have made Canadians. Why else did Kipling cali us “Our Lady of The Snows?"’ Voitaire called us the same thing, but with scorn, but then he was Voltaire. If he were around today he’d probably be hugging a tree and selling essays on the en- vironnient to CBC, Snow and winter are the Cana- dian environment or, if they no longer are, should be, for survival . in winter is the great triumph of ‘# all living creatures. . Some of them enter a little death, called hibernation, reducing all the body’s functions to the lewest possible level while awaiting the sun of spring to return. . , Some, like the bears, favor the great Canadian compromise, pass- ing almost into a hibernation State, but capable of reviving __ themselves on warm days. Muittitudes of others, grouse, |. your return ~~ Snot delayed — \ ” Wi Paul St. Pierre | caribou, wild horses and old trap- pers and cowboys, hunker down in the Canadian winter and endure it and live to see another summer. All of them are better for hav- ing learned, once again, how puny, how ridiculously small and unimportant, is the race of man. Poets have always understood it better than most. Walt Whitman in his Diary of Canada said, ‘I have sometimes doubted whether there could be a great race without the hardy in- fluence of winters in duke propor- tion.” His compatriot, John Greenleaf Whittier, said it all in Snow- bound. The sun that brief December jay Rose cheerless over hills of grey And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than the waning moon. When he speaks of the farm ‘family battening down for the blizzard, feeding the animals, fill- ing the woodbox, we can see — all of use who have ever known winter at all — the strength and the pride of the people who con- quered the American and Cana- dian wilderness. We are losing winter. Some of us, the snowbirds, do so by fleeing to the realms of the Spanish-Indian empire of Mexico. There, each day, the sun rises at 6 and sets at 6, the sea breeze blows from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., precisely, always, and the nor- therner must learn to ignore weather because if he looked to it for change he would go mad. Even at home in British Col- umbia, there has been scarcely any winter for many years. In 1991- 92, not even a one-day dusting of m . snow was spread on Vancouver. m™-. There has not been a day of - sharp; Hard freeze. No children of the Lower Mainland crushed the . spikes of hoarfrost under their Vans as they walked each day damp, listless airs of a land of grey and green. None of them awakened to find that Jack Frost had painted their bedroom windows with designs worthy of cathedrals. } shall drive North. How far? Very far, it seems. A traveller reports that crocus leaves were six inches high in Calgary on Feb. 15. On most of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan the lands lay black, not white, in this winter of 1992. The same blandness wraps Okanagan, the Boundary Coun- i | behind Ue CHICKEN - LAMB or BEEF SOUVLAKI 2 For 1 DINNER ENTREE When anoiner Souvlaki of equal or greater value is ordered. Expires May 31/92 One coupon per table Dine-in only. Belly ‘Dancing Saturday Nights Licensed Premises “Tk (604) 984-7311 1352 Lonsdale Ave. North Vancouver, BC. 1 Bee eee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee Lots of people fill out their tax return with great care, only to miss details that, surprisingly, can make all the difference. For example, if your address is incorrect or incomplete, your refund could be delayed or sent to the wrong place. If you will be moving, write the new address on your retum, or if you don’t know it yet, please call to let us know as soon as you can so we can update your file. Another important detail is attaching al! the slips and receipts that support your claims for credits and deductions. If any are missing, your retum may get held up while we contact you for 23 the information. Also, starting this year, you can choose to have your refund deposited directly into your account. To take advantage of our convenient new Direct Deposit service, check the application form in - your tax package. Revenue Canada = Revenu Canada Taxation impét Friday, March 6, 1992 - North Shore News - 9 A search for winter, and col try, East and West Kootenay and the Cariboo. Winter has left us and retreated io the north. Those who claim the sky is fall- ing used to blame the atom boribs. Now they blame aerosol cans. The scientists say it is a repeti- tion of cycles in weather that are litle understood. d truth Whatever it be, it is our loss, the cold, clean snap of a winter. So the car will roll north until we shail fiad a road that is not a road, but snow, a place where morning's frosts will cover it all with diamonds that will shine under a cold, pale sun. All will be white, pure, awesome, as winter should be.