In this darkest part of the year, there’s one thing that we here in Canada can do to make things a little brighter: Stop making fun of Vancouverites reacting to snow.
I know, making fun of the Lower Mainland for sliding into chaos at the mere mention of the word “flake” is a tradition that has united most of Canada for decades, right up there with laughing at the Toronto Maple Leafs.
I grew up in Alberta and used to be one of those who would laugh at hapless Vancouver falling to bits when it snowed once every three years.
“Oh, you poor dears! Was your dog’s paddleboard yoga class cancelled?”
Like everyone else in “real” Canada, I knew what “real” winter felt like. I have a dead patch of skin shaped like Antarctica on my cheek to prove it, frozen numb during a ski run at –28 C. I spun my mom’s Toyota Tercel into a snowbank on an icy street, my youthful exuberance getting the best of me as I pushed that little car to its limit: 38 km/h.
I spent full months living from front door to car, car to office, office to mall, never spending more than a minute outside because the outside could kill you in minutes.
Whenever we would hear about Vancouver being brought to a standstill by a couple of inches of snow we’d laugh or scoff or put on our best Crocodile Dundee accent (the rest of Canada loves the ’80s), stare down Vancouver and say, “That’s not winta… This is winta.” And then we’d show Vancouver our giant knoife.
But I’ve been living in the Lower Mainland for more than 10 years now and I finally get it. Winter doesn’t come to Vancouver often but when it does, it’s messier than Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. “These streets used to be so great, now they’re unwalkable. Sad. At least they’re white!”
Last week, we had a snowstorm here that lasted all day. At least, I thought we had a snowstorm. I walked to work in it, my boots bearing the salty slush stains to prove it. The rest of the country, however, didn’t want to hear about it. We wrote a story under the headline “Snowstorm brings up to 15 cm of snow to North Shore” and posted it on our Facebook page with the caption “Winter has arrived.” It seemed reasonable but, hoooo-boy, the comments came in quick and ruthless.
“Winter, 15 cm of snow? LOL!” was the first one.
“Snowstorm?” came another reply a few minutes later, accompanied by four laugh emojis. “LOL last time I was in a snowstorm, it lasted around 4 or 5 days!”
I started to have an existential crisis. Did we, in fact, have a snowstorm? It was cold outside, huge flakes were falling all day and the ground, trees, houses and marijuana shops were all covered in white stuff. Was that even snow?
The story was accompanied by a photo of a bus on a snowy, slushy street. Actually, the bus wasn’t technically 100% on the street — the front part of it was smashed into a tree. Yes, this was definitely a “storm” that involved “snow.”
With that, I realized the country had gone a little too far, treating the story of snow in Vancouver like a fake news story about Hillary Clinton stealing a spaceship from NASA so she could fly to Mars and torture baby Republican Martians. No one would believe such a thing except just under half of all voting Americans.
But the snow is real. The cold is real. It won’t stick around for as long as it does in the rest of the country but please don’t deny its existence. Four days after the first snowfall, we got another huge dump.
Pray for us, rest of Canada. Who should have to live in a hell like this, where each day you wake up not knowing where your dog will do hot yoga?
Andy Prest is sports editor of the North Shore News and writes a lifestyle column.
@Sports_Andy
