[QUOTE=kushiel]
<snip>
However, you’re not allowed to call yourself a prairie dweller until you’ve walked to Sev in -35 to go get a slush.
<snip>
[/QUOTE]
It was cold and miserable last Friday, so my husband and I went to Dairy Queen for ice cream for dessert. And we weren’t the only people in there. 
[QUOTE=kushiel]
However, you’re not allowed to call yourself a prairie dweller until you’ve walked to Sev in -35 to go get a slush. Damn, that’s good.
[/QUOTE]
Do you do that thing where you pull your coat sleeve down over your hand and then sort of balance the slush cup on your coat for the walk back home?
Man I miss sev - we don’t have any out here.
[QUOTE=Meyer6]
Do you do that thing where you pull your coat sleeve down over your hand and then sort of balance the slush cup on your coat for the walk back home?
[/QUOTE]
Hahahaha, absolutely!
Don’t know what the air temperature was exactly, but a cold snap in Minnesota triggered one of my favorite lines. We were driving down Hennepin Avenue one evening, watching out the window where the sidewalk hostesses were offering their services.
“Minnesota”, said my buddy. “The only state in the Union where the hookers wear galoshes.”
Regards,
Shodan
In high school, I went winter-camping with a friend in the Allegheny National Forest, just north of Pittsburgh, Pa. We knew it was damned cold, but it wasn’t until the next morning when we got back to civilization that we learned it had gotten down to 40 below that night. Brrrrr!
[QUOTE=featherlou]
I seem to recall that, too, from my Saskatchewanian childhood. And no school closures just for cold, either - you were expected to put a damned toque on!
[/QUOTE]
Is this a word or a mental condition?
/I keed.
YK1 (Yellowknife school board) shut down schools today because of the cold. I don’t remember that ever happening before.
In Fairbanks they used to close the schools when it got to fucking 60 below. Not 50 below, 60 below. And everyone was always worried that some kids would get dropped off at the school and their parents would speed away leaving their kids locked out of the closed school at 60 below.
I mean, it only got to 60 below a few days every year, at that point why even bother? If you’re not gonna close for 50 below, is 60 below really that much worse?
[QUOTE=Shirley Ujest]
Is this a word or a mental condition?
/I keed.
[/QUOTE]
You think you’re kidding…
(Separated the two ideas because there’s nothing funny about this story)
Did y’all hear about that recent news story about a father on a reservation in Northern Saskatchewan who got drunk and took his two young children outside in -TooFreakingCold? They found him and got him all warmed up, but by the time he was tracking mentally again and started asking about his kids, it was too late for the two children he had left out in the cold. That truly sucks.
[QUOTE=EmAnJ]
Today in Calgary it’s around -49C (-56F) with the wind chill, about -35 without. This obviously caused problems for a lot of people, and some schools shut down, but it certainly hasn’t brought the city to a halt.
It got me thinking, though, about what the coldest temperature I’ve ever been in was. This is close, but the winner is up in Northern BC during my Grade 12 exams. It was foggy and windless, and around -53C.
Anyone else suffered like I am right now?
[/QUOTE]
Oh, yeah - Born in Melfort, SK, raised outside of Brandon, MB and my first gig was touring for Edmonton Opera for two years. My first year of university, we had one of those cold snaps that went from mid-January until the last week of March - -35C or colder every day.
While I was a kid, my first job was delivering the bills for the gas company. Remember the first big mail strike, the one that raised the price of a stamp from 5 cents to 8 cents? Someone at the gas company realized they could pay a couple of kids 5 cents per bill and save 3 cents! So, every Thursday and Friday evening, and all day Saturday, I’d walk about 20 miles or so, delivering between 400 - 600 bills. I can tell you all about your spit cracking as it freezes before it hits the sidewalk, seeing sundogs, your beard freezing to your scarf and your scarf freezing to your parka. I remember having to put your gloves on before you left the house because the doorknob would be cold enough that the sweat on your hand would freeze to it. My friend in Edmonton lost all the skin off his palm going from the sauna to roll in the snow…
But what’s really weird is - I miss it! Winter is still my favourite season, and deep-freezes like that are the price you have to pay to be able to ski, snowshoe, curl, skate for four + months. In Toronto, where I now reside, we don’t have anything near like that, and my kids are growing up wimps!
So cherish that bitter cold, and it can’t be too much longer before you guys get a chinook…
Best wishes,
Doug
Growing up in Chicoutimi was no picnic.
[QUOTE=Le Ministre de l’au-delà]
So cherish that bitter cold, and it can’t be too much longer before you guys get a chinook…
[/QUOTE]
I remember Christmases where we were outside playing in shirt sleeves. Ahhh, Chinooks. The town where I mostly grew up (Fort Macleod, Alberta) has prevailing Westerlies to the point where the trees are all leaning East, but the Chinook was something special. It looks different - the clouds all line up in an arch, and there’s a different smell on the wind. And then it warms up.
I surely do miss an Alberta winter. Not often, but I do.
Ah, the chinook ozone smell. Beautiful. I like the smell to start with (I take a deep whiff around photocopiers, too), but when you know that it’s a harbinger of the warm weather pushing the cold weather out, it’s even better.
Back during Christmas of '01, I was up in Minot AFB, ND. The temperature one week hovered at -60F; it was cold enough to close the flightline, and the missile crews were ordered to remain in place.
Thankfully, the bombers weren’t on nuclear alert. But it still baffles me that the cold shut down an arm of a strategic asset [sub]and here I thought the extreme cold helped the density altitude ratio to where you’d prefer it![/sub].
Tripler
To a degree, it furthers my theories on the wimpification of America.