Caribou

So what do people do to keep warm during Carnaval in Quebec? What are they drinking at all those outdoor fires? Caribou, the official drink of Quebec's Winter Carnaval, that's what.

And why do you think Bonhomme, the official mascot of the Carnaval, has that big smile on his face? Caribou, that's what.


If you want to try this at home, here's the recipe. Serve it warm or cold.

• 3 oz. vodka
• 3 oz. brandy
• 12 ½ oz. Canadian sherry
• 12 ½ oz. Canadian port

It sounds pretty gross - until you're sitting in some bleachers waiting for a parade to start in the icebox of a Quebec winter, and a friendly volunteer offers you a glass. It sort of grows on you. :-)

You can also buy this concoction in a bottle.

Mon Pays, C'est l'Hiver

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
My country is not a country, it's winter

Gilles Vigneault's* lyrics have always resonated deeply for me, and never more than after our recent visit to Quebec City. Winter is my favourite season. Gazing over a pure white blanket of snow glistening in the sunlight lifts my spirits.  Cozying up by a fire while fluffy snow gently falls outside soothes my soul. Walking in a blizzard is completely exhilarating. And there's no more pleasant sound than the gentle swish of skis on crisp new snow.

Ice slide on Dufferin Terrace

As a Quebec City girl, I remember the pre-salt days when you could have a sleigh ride through Quebec's snow-covered streets. And I remember my terror as a kid hurtling down the big slide on Dufferin Terrace. Nothing's changed; they're still screaming down the ice trenches where the toboggans run. (It's higher and scarier than this picture captures!)





If you care for more peaceful enjoyment of winter, you can cross country ski on the groomed trail around the 100 acre Plains of Abraham park, which overlooks the magnificent St. Lawrence. Or simply walk along those paths.

While I was rather disappointed in the dull snow sculptures at Carnaval (I remember being dazzled as a kid), I was really taken with the vast array of winter outdoor activities at the Carnaval site: a miniature ice slide modelled on the Dufferin Terrace one, sliding on inner tubes, taking a dog sled ride or a sleigh ride, learning to snowboard, skating with Bonhomme, ice fishing in a small pond and having your trout cooked for you on the spot, having a soak in an outdoor hot tub, bumper cars on ice, outdoor bars and grills with benches and warm-up fires, and a sugar shack. All the Carnaval activities were testimony to how much fun you can have outdoors in winter.



In case you don't know what happens at a sugar shack, let me tell you it's diabolically sweet. You boil maple syrup until it's treacly thick, then pour it over snow, let it sit a while until it starts to harden, roll it up on a stick and eat. Heaven.







Why are people such wusses about winter?

I have a theory; people feel cold because their brains tell them to.

My special scale for measuring temperature ranges from balmy, to pleasant, refreshing, brisk, cool, cold, very cold, bitterly cold, and frigid. Psychologically, I think people start to consider that it's very cold, when the temperature dips below zero. In the 'old days' of the Farenheit scale, this meant people didn't start to acknowledge it was very cold until the temperature hit what is now -18 in Celsius. So we all used to take temperatures between 0 and -18C in our stride, thinking it was merely cold because they were all positive temperatures in Farenheit. Now that they're negative temperatures, people's brains tell them it's very cold. This would be an excellent study subject for behavioural scientists to see if this theory has any merit.

As you get to what even I would admit was a bitterly cold day, like the -30C on the day of the canoe races (see a report on that here), even that feels colder, because it would have been a 'balmy' -22 in Fahrenheit. Then, to make it worse, we've invented the concept of windchill. So that day of the canoe races was announced as -42C with the windchill. No wonder people felt justified in calling it frigid!

Maybe we could just rename winter temperatures, dress warmly and start enjoying. 

*Although I am adamantly anti-separatist, I can admire the poetry and songs of that ardent separatist Vigneault.

What's in a description? Apple

In a recent Tech Crunch article about the decline of Google, its products and its ethics, I fell in love with this phrase to describe Apple :

A gorgeous velvet glove enclosing an exquisitely sleek titanium fist.

Other posts on words:

Handy

Genocide
Digitalization
Digital Slime

Lunacy on the St. Lawrence

It's winter in Québec. It's bitterly cold (-30C), grey and overcast, with a biting wind of 40-50 km/hour. The temperature is -42 with the windchill.  We're on a ferry moored on the Quebec shore, ready to watch the annual canoe race that's a highlight of the Québec Winter Carnival. That's the St. Lawrence River, looking across to distant Lévis.

The river is cluttered with floating ice. Doesn't that look inviting for a canoe race?


 Apparently so for 260 lunatics in 52 canoes (4 rowers in each boat plus a paddling coxswain in the rear) who are going to race across the St. Lawrence and back. There is a 'professional' category, regular category(many with mixed boats) and a women's category. The top group will do it twice - yes, you heard that right, they'll cross the river four times. What a way to spend an afternoon! As you can see, the river looks even less inviting up close.


Here's how it goes: you enter the river off to our left, paddle up to the marker buoy hanging off our ferry, continue upstream, then turn to cross the river. You have to paddle upstream because there's a hefty current moving from right to left in that picture.

Oops.  Here's the lead canoe - and they're running into ice.

What do you do now? Well, you just leap out of that canoe onto the ice, and run as fast as you can hauling your canoe, until you hit open water again. Jump in at the last minute, making sure you don't fall in, and start rowing like crazy again.

It was pretty cold just standing on the deck of the ferry. I felt as if I would lose some fingers to frostbite as I took these photos. I can't imagine being out on the river.

Here's a picture of some further pictures of the canoe race.

A couple of boats on the ice

It gets pretty crowded

Sometimes even chaotic

There were some great pictures in the Quebec daily Le Soleil: