For the past two years my home of record has been Palm Springs, California. However as I write this, it is a glorious, warm, sunny Sunday afternoon in Owen Sound, Ontario. I came here to write about what spending winter in Canada would be like for a guy from a desert resort town that plays host to thousands of Canadian snowbirds every winter.
The only problem was I made it here, winter didn’t.
My guide to Owen Sound and the Bruce Peninsula has been my friend Jon Breithaupt. Jon, who is an avid hiker, as well as photographer, bass guitarist and accomplished powerlifter, and who is also completing work on his Power Engineering certification, helped me make the most out of what turned out to be the mildest Ontario winter in collective memory.
It was Jon who suggested, even though it was -24°C/-11°F during the one brief cold snap we experienced all winter long, that we drive up to the very end of the Bruce Peninsula and explore the coast of Lake Huron around Tobermory, Ontario. Once there, we were treated to a spectacular winter wonderland created by the warm mist coming off the lake as it encountered the extremely cold air on dry land.
Potawatomi Conservation Area less than a month after the -24°C/-11°F Polar Vortex.
It wasn’t difficult for Jon, or anyone for that matter, to notice that as winter turned to spring, I was not quite entirely finished with learning more about Canada. After all I hadn’t even met the country’s young, hot, new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.
Explaining his summer plans to me Jon said “I’ll be working an engineering Co-Op [what Americans call an internship] in Cambridge [Ontario]. It’s shift work and every few weeks I’ll have seven days off in a row.” The suggestion being he would be able to continue to introduce me to seasonal special events as well as show me nearby Canadian landmarks.
He explained that, “Cambridge is the outer edge of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) and just about an hour from the center of the city.”
Ever since my first brief visit last summer, I’ve been looking forward to the day I’d be able to return to Toronto and further explore the city. For my money, what there is of it, it’s one of the most beautiful cities in North America, right up there with New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco.
And then there is the matter of the colonoscopy I’ve had scheduled for months back in Palm Springs, which I’m reminded of every time I try to explain Donald Trump and American presidential politics to Canadians.
All the more reason to spend the summer in Ontario (politics back home that is, not the colonoscopy, which I’m afraid I can’t get out of).
This means I will be returning to Palm Springs for at least a few weeks. In addition to medical matters I have to straighten out some personal matters as well, like finding a better way of getting my mail forwarded to me; seems I completely missed Jury Duty back in January.
Oh how I’m looking forward to that jug of colon-blow-detergent I’ll have to consume the day before my procedure.
NOT!
Spending a summer in Canada will afford me the opportunity to see if the radical change in the weather that Ontario, and most of the rest of the country, experienced this past winter continues. Will spring and summer be unusually different in any way or just return to normal patterns?
Toronto, Ontario
So, after a stroke of good fortune gave us both very low cost access to a three bedroom house just minutes away from the plant Jon will be working in, I said to him, in the words of Groucho Marx;
“I’ll stay a week or two,
I’ll stay the summer through…”
To which he replied, “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend the summer with.”
The adventure continues.
