Say Hello to Our New Friend, Winter

Hailing from Pigeon Lake, Gatineau and Calgary, Carol Neuman is an Edmonton writer, community organizer and winter-lover.

Welcome to Cold City Cool: An alliterative slogan that invokes our collective chutzpah.

Do you like it? How it sounds? Can you see it emblazoned on a button or scarf or carved in ice?

Cold City Cool is the idea that, in a universe of cities climbing over each other to earn Richard Florida’s Creative Class merit badges, Edmonton needs to stop, opt out, and create a new race to the top – one where the cards are stacked in our favor.

Instead of scoring points for neighborhood walkability, population density and gay-friendliness, (important for any self-respecting metro centre no doubt, but we’ll never beat out an Austin or Seattle or Toronto), we will push the fact that Edmonton is unique and lovely and charming because it’s so damn cold all the time. (Note: Winter 2011-12 is excised from this missive.)


There’s only one problem.

We don’t really think our cold city is all that cool. Yet.

We’re changing that. With celebrations like the Parka Patio, our fantastic winter festivals and an earnest city-led think tank pushing for a seasonal strategy, we are slowly nudging our attitudes of winter in a more Florida-worthy direction.

One of the resources fueling this culture shift is memory. Do you remember what winter was like when you were little?

I do.

I remember being on the farm and the deep, dark cold knocking out power lines and my dad, inspired no doubt by MacGyver himself, hooking up his giant tractor to the transformer and fashioning an electrical grid to keep us, and all our many creatures, warm till the ATCO guys could come by and patch things up. I remember feeling like a god when I had to resuscitate a litter of poorly born winter bunnies from frozen and naked and inanimate to breathing and naked and squirming. I remember the Zen of bobbing a line through the hole in the ice, and cleaning our catch and the smell of fish, brining and smoking and frying for January weeks.

But you probably don’t remember that. Which is the point, really. I’m not suggesting that my winter childhood memories are born of rugged defiance or simpler times. They’re just what sticks with me.

Like playing in the snow. Remember your snowsuit, with mittens on strings threaded through each end? Remember spending half your grade school recess squirming into it just to enjoy five glorious minutes of tobogganing?
 Of course you do! (Probably.)

Shared experiences matter. They shape us. Patterned on the souls of all winter kids are deep imprints of holiday school plays and cocoa breaks and snow forts.

But they fade with adulthood, because winter stops being fun when you grow up. At some point, probably in the heady days of pedway proliferation, and definitely after the first brush of shoveling your driveway in the dark, we grasped onto anything that promised to engineer away the unpleasantness of winter outdoors and allow us to cocoon in the willful ignorance of winter indoors.
 That might play in the concrete city. But the farm would have none of that. Neither would our river valley, or your favorite national park.

The natural world might look lifeless in the winter, bleakly so even, but nothing really dies. Rhythms change, but they don’t stop. 
Winter is not death. Winter is a cloak of downy secrets, hiding from view the thriving, throbbing heartbeat of life.

Seasonal suspended animation is just a big myth: We see a barren meadow; we don’t see the warren of voles skittering through the snow pack. We see a lake of ice; we don’t see the school of fish teeming in the waters below. We see a barnyard dweller its fuzzy winter coat; we don’t see the spring newborn growing inside its belly. 
 In fact, we don’t really see winter at all. It is an invisible time, untouched by our eyes or instincts. But this palette is blank and fresh. Colors are brighter, thanks to a lazy sun, slung dangerously low in the solstice sky. This is a new muse. Beyond the vastness of marshmallow white, there’s the crystalline blue and citrus yellow of day, and miles of inky indigo by night. For creative types, this is a brand new old toy to play with—a giant LiteBrite with a fresh pack of pegs and a spare bulb. And, best of all, no one else really has one. For now but not for long, winter is ours, and ours alone.

This, we can work with. We’re in a cultural moment when rediscovering and reclaiming our discards is cool again. (That’s why we valorize oddities like vinyl records, other people’s old clothes and offal). And trust me, nothing is as unloved or forgotten as winter.

So l suggest we redefine winter and become shameless, tireless boosters of our special, secret season. It’s easier and a lot more fun than the alternative. This way, we can create recess for grownups and make some new, shiny, shared memories. I don’t mean another holiday or festival, but regularly scheduled breaks to go outside with each other. To have fun. To create. To drink. To play. Winter’s ready for us, Edmonton. Winter misses us. (So say hello.)