November 19.  Local elections day.

Bitterly cold outside right now.  Clear skies do that up here.  The difference in temperature can be considerable simply because of cloud cover.  Minus -5 on a clear night, plus +5 on a cloudy one.  Ground gets hard, too.  Mind you, it is mostly rock where I live.  But I am talking about the abundant and thick moss-cover around us, too.  It actually gets crunchy when frozen. When it is cold footprints remain behind from a walk on the moss as if it was snow.

I don’t usually ‘do’ weather.  It is one of those things I can’t do anything about so I just accept it as it is and carry on.  But I must admit, I am much more aware of the effects of weather on daily life out here than I ever was in the city.  Especially in the winter.

There is such a thing as an urban cocoon of sorts weather-wise in the city.  Cars, underground parking, heated garages and large urban buildings isolate you from the elements and as necessary and civilized as that is, it is also a subtle form of denial.  In Calgary you can live the entire day and travel about the city without feeling the cold.  Same for parts of Montreal.  Probably the same for many cities these days.

Comment: harder to stay in touch with the health and well-being of the planet when you are isolated from it.

‘Course, I am trying my best to stay insulated, if not isolated, myself.  We are crankin’ through the wood.  Staying warm requires a constant feed to the woodstove and we are diminishing the wood pile at a prodigous rate.  But the house is good.  Warm and toasty.    And we are OK.

Without the woodpile, however, we’d have no choice but to leave.  Firewood is essential for survival out here.  Don’t got central heat or electric baseboards.

There is a lot of snow on the higher elevations around us.  That means the ‘logging road’ we travel on the next island over will have snow on it.  Usually more than a few trees ‘freeze’, crack, split and fall across the road somewhere along the route in the winter.  That means carrying a chainsaw with you when you go out.

It’s still a bit of an adventure out here.  Every day.

Well, ‘adventure’ is a bit of a stretch.  After a while some familiarity and competence enters the picture (or should) and what might reasonably be described as an ‘adventure’ to some is really just an ordinary everyday-type event to a local.

Frankly, I am still somewhere in between.  I am relatively calm in the face of the regular challenges and I am generally prepared to deal with them – whatever they are – but sometimes I think, “Geez, if I do this wrong I am sitting in a remote ditch in freezing weather with night falling and no one likely to come along.  And no cell phone service for 15 miles!”  I am not yet so competent and confident that I assume safe-going.   Especially if the conditions are harsh.  I am not so sure I’ll ever get there.  There are frequent reminders of mortality out here.

Mind you, I am starting to adopt the local custom of dressing in multiple layers.  And I mean multiple – like 7 or more.  Complete with enveloping survival suit for some.  They look like polar explorers sometimes.  I am not quite there.  My record to date: 5 layers.

Most of the people out here have a greater confidence in their abilities to cope than I do in mine.  But that confidence is rooted in decades of experience.  (Sally doesn’t count – she was born lacking the ‘fear’ chromosone.)  

Our friend J, who lives another ten or so miles up the coast, once came to vist in a major storm in the middle of a cold and tempestuous December.  And she was dressed for it.  Her boat is about 14′ long and the seas were really nasty.  Didn’t faze her in the least.  She will travel in the storms, the dark, the freezing and the sleet and fog that we get up here and not so much as blink an eye.  And she typifies the attitude of most of those who have been up here for decades.

‘Course there are some who had that same level of confidence and have since passed on.  Confidence is not enough.  Losing people out here in the winter is not an uncommon occurence.  So that is why I am not so sure I’ll ever achieve 100% comfort.

But I have an answer to that.  I tend to ‘opt out’ of the possibility rather earlier in the risk escalation process.  “Hey!  It’s cold.  It’s blowing hard and I’m sure I can make it.  But it is not letting up and so it may get worse and I am not going to put myself in that position.  So, I’m not going!”  

“We understand, Dave.  Take care.”  And then all the old women, puppies and children leave without me.

And I wave goodbye and go make myself some tea.

Discretion is the better part of valour.