GP Keith - Out in the Back Woods, New folder 1
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Out in the Back Woods • G.P. Keith
C hapter One
“T
his is one of the warmest falls Toronto has had for
years,” the man said as he entered the streetcar.
The remark was innocuous enough, and the driver
agreed in the same conversational tone. Then the
man paid his fare and headed down the aisle to find a seat.
Matt, who was seated two rows behind the driver, overheard
the remark and was annoyed by it. He turned to his friend
Marion, who was sitting next to him gazing dreamily out of
the window at the warm sunlight and the people walking
past dressed in their lightest coats.
“Did you hear that?” he said testily. “It‟s December, for
heaven‟s sake! December is
not
fall
!”
Marion turned to look at him in some surprise. “But
doesn‟t winter begin on the twenty-first of December?” she
said. “And that‟s still two weeks away.”
“No, it doesn‟t!” Matt countered still more testily.
“December 21 is the
winter
solstice
the „sun-stop‟, when the
sun is the furthest south, when it stops going south, turns
around, and starts to head north again.”
Marion reflected on this for a few seconds. “But that
would make solstice midwinter,” she said, a little puzzled.
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Out in the Back Woods • G.P. Keith
“And yet the real cold weather doesn‟t happen until later
on….”
“Yes, yes,” Matt snapped, “there
is
a natural delay in the
response of the weather to changes in the sun‟s radiation.
The overall system takes some time to build up or lose the
heat. But if you want to decide when midwinter occurs, that
delay has to be measured empirically. This business of
calling winter solstice „the start of winter‟ is just a symptom
of the increasing ignorance of the massespeople who are
just too lazy to learn real science.”
Matt spluttered himself to a stop, and there was silence
between the friends for perhaps half a minute, after which
Marion said with an exasperated sigh, “Why is it, Matt, that
you always have to use your physics degree as a club to beat
people up with?”
Matt felt his face heat up as a sense of shame rose
inside him. He realized that he had been taking out his
annoyance on his friend. He took several deep breaths and
said humbly, “Sorry, Marion.”
The apology, once made, was accepted. Marion shook
her head and then asked, “So what exactly is it about this
that‟s making you get your panties in a bunch?”
“Toronto
winters
,” Matt muttered, speaking the phrase
with the deepest disgust.
“Ah,” said Marion. There was no need for Matt to
elaborate. Over the years of their friendship, she had listened
to his tirades about “Toronto winters” at least once a year. In
spite of this, and partly just to offer Matt an opportunity to
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Out in the Back Woods • G.P. Keith
let off steam (and partly just for the fun of pushing his
buttons), she said in an innocent tone, “What don‟t you like
about Toronto winters?”
Matt half laughed, as he understood Marion‟s second
motive, but he couldn‟t resist the opportunity to vent. How
many times had he explained to his friends in Toronto that
where he grew up, in central British Columbia, the climate
wasn‟t like what everyone took to be the standard BC
climate, which was that of the province‟s lower mainland, the
small area around Vancouver and Victoria where a snowfall
of any kind was an event and always melted within twenty-
four hours. Educating people about the
real
BC, the vast
interior region of the province, was for Matt a kind of
personal crusade.
“When I was a kid in Prince George,” Matt now began in
low, breathless tones, “the snow would always be on the
ground by Halloween. And it
stayed
, snowfall after snowfall,
through the months, piling higher and higher, foot after foot
on the sides of streets, sidewalks, and driveways. At the
same time, the days got really short. We went to school in
the dark and came home in the dark. It wasn‟t until April,
when the sun started to come back, that the snow began to
melt. Weeks and weeks of meltthe boys playing marbles in
the schoolyard, the girls skipping ropes. That was
real
winter, and
real
spring.”
“Not quite like Toronto, eh?” Marion commented, her
mouth curved in a slight smile, though her eyes registered
sympathy.
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Out in the Back Woods • G.P. Keith
“
Toronto winter
,” Matt almost spat, “where every
snowfall is followed in a week or two by a warm spell that
melts the top layer of snow. And then the temperature falls
back below freezing, and the puddles become sheets of ice on
the roads and sidewalks. So they have to throw down
quantities of salt, which melts the snow and creates that
salty slush that gets on everything, stains fabric, rots
leather, and rusts metal. Dis-gust-ing! And
then
, maybe the
next week or the week after that it snows again, and a new
cycle begins, each time a mini-winter followed by a mini-
spring, over and over from mid-December to the end of
March. You know, scientists say that the temperature
rocking back across freezing is a condition for the formation
of life. I can personally verify that, at least for cold germs
you know how I get at least two colds every year during these
„winters‟.”
Matt sighed. “When I lived in Prince George,” he added
miserably, “I hardly ever caught a cold.”
This speech was followed by a prolonged silence. Then
Marion said, “Oh, look, this is my stop coming up.” She
turned and kissed Matt on the cheek and spoke sternly,
saying, “I have just one thing to say to you, my boy.” She
leaned toward him as she got up. “You should go and check
it out!”
“What?”
Marion was edging past him into the aisle. She turned
her head. “Take those two weeks of vacation you‟ve been
saving up, and get back there for Christmas,” she said.
When she was almost at the door, she added, raising her
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