Rambling Man's Thoughts Friday, December 28, 2001: Here’s some background on the Rambling Man: I was born in Labrador City, a town in Northern Canada (OK, North Eastern Canada). It’s a town where there are only two seasons, winter and summer, although summer is usually on July 15 and 16 (though this changes depending upon if it’s a leap year or not). Another way to describe the climate is that there is eight months of winter and four months of bad skiing. My dad was originally an engineer at the Iron Ore mine there, but he switched jobs and became the town’s recreation director. I wasn’t sure what this meant when I was a kid, just that we could get into any gym in town. There are three towns in a 30km (or 17 miles for your Americans) radius and after that it is an 8 – 10 hr drive over a mostly dirt road to civilization. It used to be that you could only get into town by plane or by a 13 hr train ride. That’s how we got out for our summer vacations every year, but I’ll cover that later maybe. People often ask me how cold it got up there, and my standard response is that the schools didn’t close until it was minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) with the wind chill! That’s not a word of a lie! How do you survive in weather such as this?? I remember when I was in England visiting relatives when I was 13, and I went to school with my cousin (actually my dad’s cousin’s son) and the teacher asked me where I was from. After I told her my bio and mentioned that it regularly get to –40 C during January and February, she asked “How do you survive in such cold weather”, I think expecting me to talk about advanced insulation in the clothing, winter survival techniques, etc. I answered ‘We stay indoors!”. Apparently, this wasn’t the answer she was looking for, since she gave me a cold stare and went on to other things. RamblingMan // 6:33 AM ______________________
Here’s some background on the Rambling Man: I was born in Labrador City, a town in Northern Canada (OK, North Eastern Canada). It’s a town where there are only two seasons, winter and summer, although summer is usually on July 15 and 16 (though this changes depending upon if it’s a leap year or not). Another way to describe the climate is that there is eight months of winter and four months of bad skiing. My dad was originally an engineer at the Iron Ore mine there, but he switched jobs and became the town’s recreation director. I wasn’t sure what this meant when I was a kid, just that we could get into any gym in town. There are three towns in a 30km (or 17 miles for your Americans) radius and after that it is an 8 – 10 hr drive over a mostly dirt road to civilization. It used to be that you could only get into town by plane or by a 13 hr train ride. That’s how we got out for our summer vacations every year, but I’ll cover that later maybe. People often ask me how cold it got up there, and my standard response is that the schools didn’t close until it was minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) with the wind chill! That’s not a word of a lie! How do you survive in weather such as this?? I remember when I was in England visiting relatives when I was 13, and I went to school with my cousin (actually my dad’s cousin’s son) and the teacher asked me where I was from. After I told her my bio and mentioned that it regularly get to –40 C during January and February, she asked “How do you survive in such cold weather”, I think expecting me to talk about advanced insulation in the clothing, winter survival techniques, etc. I answered ‘We stay indoors!”. Apparently, this wasn’t the answer she was looking for, since she gave me a cold stare and went on to other things. RamblingMan // 6:33 AM
