“My finger tips started to stick to the glass”… and other lessons I’ve learned about surviving winter in Canada.

Spring is here! We’ve survived our first Canadian winter! Here are some lessons we’ve learned about life in a cold climate and an embarrassing story in which I open a car window on a very cold morning.

Something has changed recently. Locals no longer say ‘wait until it’s -35C’ or ‘wait until it’s still snowing in May’ when I tell them I love this town. Along with the recent warmer weather, has arrived a new level of acceptance, even respect, when I’m chatting to the weather-hardened people of Prince George.

It’s lovely that surviving our first winter has earned local’s approval, it certainly makes me proud when chatting in the queue at the post office, but let’s not pretend there weren’t some steep learning curves and embarrassing moments in getting to this point!

A few facts

• Prince George’s daily average low temperature for winter is -10C.
• Prince George’s daily average high temperature for winter is -5C.
• Prince George commonly has week’s where temperatures plummet to around -35C in winter.
• The lowest temperature ever recorded in Prince George is -50C.

Tips from the experts

During one of our online meetings the young, hardy, northerners who make up 3rd Prince George Girl Guides, who I’m a leader with, gave me some impromptu advice on managing the cold weather. Here are a few of their suggestions…

When it’s really cold don’t go out. During the week of -30C Bally the Greyhound fully subscribed to this suggestion. He had to be dragged outside. Once out, he’d do the necessary as soon as possible and run back in!

Moisturise everything. I can attest that you’re skin gets really dry when the temperature drops. To the point that it actually hurts!

Don’t underestimate the cold. I’d like to say this one was easy for me to stick to, given how fearful I am of ever feeling the slightest bit of cool air prickle my skin. But as the story at the reveals, we all make mistakes.

Get outside and have fun. It’s true that the more you get out and embrace the cold, the more you not just cope, but thrive! Unless it’s really cold of course, then I subscribe to the Bally school of thought mentioned above.

Some lessons we’ve learned about keeping everyone warm

Any advice you read will say that the secret to keeping warm is layering. But I could have told you that before living here and I know that you, wherever you live, could too.

Surviving everyday life in the Canadian winter for us – one person who hates the cold, one who loves it and an ill-suited dog – has meant learning about and buying things which I had never used before – such as micro spike – or using items – such as mittens – in ways I did not appreciate before!

I had no idea before living here that there could be times when gloves could be absolutely pointless and mittens life saving! When it’s really cold gloves offer feeble assistance compared to the protection of a good pair of mittens that allow your fingers to rub together and generate heat! To think I spent thirty years thinking mittens were just for toddlers!

Having never spent an extended amount of time somewhere snowy or icy before, micro spikes were a new concept to me! You slip them on over your boots to give you extra traction in treacherous conditions! They come in many different types: everyday, running, hiking, glacier walking, the list goes on! We opted for a pair for pavements with small studs and a pair for hiking with larger spikes (see photo below)!

Naturally, if you bring a dog to Northern British Columbia who is completely inappropriate for this climate you have to drop some serious dollar equipping him! Most doggies here are rugged, hairy creatures but poor Bally (our rescue Greyhound) is short haired and has legs of dubious strength, due to a break previously in one and ligament damage in another.

Before the first snow had fallen we had bought the lovable, lazy lump four high rise boots and a Canadian-made thick winter coat; it’s called the ‘Great White North’ and designed for temperatures as low as -30C. Aside from when it was below -30C and he refused to go outside, he seems to have enjoyed frolicking about in the snow!

It’s unsurprising that Bally and I have needed some additional help to encourage us outside at times. But comfortingly even Jacob’s toes needed some assistance.

After returning from quite a few hikes, sticking the kettle on and warming up, only to find that Jacob’s feet were still worryingly blue, Jacob had to invest in another item we’d had no call for before: insulated winter hiking boots with a frost plate and a soft shell zip cover!

Some lessons we’ve learned about the car and driving in the cold

The coming cold had to be considered before we even purchased a car in Prince George. Following many local’s advice we opted for an SUV with 4 wheel drive to make our first winter driving in deep snow as safe as possible.

The next consideration was tires: you need a set of ‘winters’ and a set of ‘summers’. Winter tires are important as they have a softer compound which makes it easier for them to grip roads even when there is ice or snow. Thankfully the car we bought already had it’s ‘winters’ on and a set of ‘summers’ too.

By the time we finally bought a second hand car good enough to get us through the winter, but not so good it would break the bank, the snow had arrived! Slow and steady was my mantra for the challenge of learning to driving in snow, on the right, with a new highway code!

Thankfully, the stereotype about Canadians being polite is mostly true, for the most part the roads are dual carriage ways and the speed limits are crazy low, so I rarely felt under pressure to go against my mantra.

We used a block heater to ensure that the engine started on really cold mornings. The block heater is an electrical heating element which is embedded in the engine block. There is an electrical cord which hangs out the front of the engine. You plug this into a electricity cable, we run ours from the garage.

We had ours all set up, when I got home from work one day to find Jacob – an expression of exasperation on his face – had come out to meet me bearing the damage from my hasty departure that morning in his hand: the ripped off plug from our block heater. Not being used to having to ‘unplug the car’, I had driven off without doing so and ripped the plug from the wire which hangs out the front of the engine. Woops!

An embarrassing story from a cold morning

It was -30C, but the forecast had warned it would ‘feel like -40C with the wind chill’. Jacob had kindly cleared off, and got the car running, ready for my drive to work.

I yelled goodbye and got in the car as quickly as possible, not wanting to linger long enough to feel the unpleasant sensation of cold air as it catches in your throat.

Bundled in layers of clothing and wearing thick gloves, I was not far from work when I got to a junction where I needed to turn left (across the path of oncoming traffic). The sun was streaming down upon my wind screen and I could not see a thing ahead of me.

Knowing that I should be turning, but unable to see if it was safe to do so, I panicked and made a big mistake.

I opened the window to look out.

In my defence, this solved the visibility problem and I turned left safely. The problem was, the window would not close.

Cold air began filling the car and not just a bit cold. Burning exposed parts of my face, stinging my nostrils and making my eyes water. That kind of cold.

But hit the electric button as hard as I might, the window just gave a feeble noise, churned upwards half a centimetre and stopped.

Then I made another big mistake. I took a glove off.

Now, one hand on the wheel, with the pathetic fingers of the other hand grasping at the glass, I tried to pull it up. I knew I’d made a mistake when the bones of my hand strung from the cold, this was confirmed when my finger tips started to stick to the glass.

I’d like to tell you that I put my glove back on and drove to work as safely as it is possible to do when it ‘feels like -40C’ and your car window is down.

But I didn’t.

I shock my hand, forcing the blood to the tips, put the glove back on for a bit, then took if off again and repeated the whole ridiculous frostbite encouraging charade. Probably about five times in total. Each time believing that this time the window would give in and work.

The madness only came to an end when I arrived at work.

Being a committed believer that machines respond to the ‘turn it off and on again’ solution, I parked up and turned the engine off, sure that the window would work when I started the car again.

Ten seconds later I twisted the key to be greeted by the sound of a sad, spurting car engine which would not start.

So now I’m stood in a school car park, it’s -30C, I’m surrounded by competent Canadians getting happily out of their cars; my window won’t do up and my car won’t start.

At that point the school bell sounded informing me that I was, on top of everything else, late.

At that point I decided to walk away and leave my dead car with it’s open window.

Worst case, I’d return to find it full of snow and fag butts flicked in by teenagers during recess.

Best case, the winter sunshine would heat it up and solve all my problems or perhaps the teens would create a competition for who could get the window up.

Either way, it wasn’t worth losing a finger over.

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Read more about life in a cold climate…

A snowy day hiking in the footsteps of First Nation traders and conquering my fear of the cold

Prince George: The armpit of British Columbia or British Columbia’s best kept secret?!

Moonlight skates and purchasing mistakes: Getting involved in Prince George’s enviable Ice Skating scene

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