It’s Cold Out, Canada

Duly inspired by the working limitations of my brilliantly titled ‘UK Working Holiday-Maker Visa’, I gave a few weeks notice to CH2M HILL that I would be gone for six weeks or so, and to my Australian friend, Julianna, now living in Montreal, that I was coming over. Juls and I studied our Honours’ year together in Perth and we’re excited about the reunion - a naïve sort of giggly anticipation reminiscent of school girls before a slumber party. I’m 15 again.

From the air, northeastern Québec is a vast land of ice. I'm staring at the grayish blue and white aerial landscape of mountains with rivers solidified into milky cracks and fissures. The flight path tells me we’re over Québec City and I can make out a tiny cluster of lights in a sea of ghostly white that stretches to the horizon. It looks small and vulnerable, like tiny flames the surrounding expanse could smother at will.

Montreal is actually an island, a medium strip between fingers of the Fleuve Saint Laurent. As we fly in low over suburbia, I watch the busy lights of cars and trucks in peak hour traffic leaving dark tracks on soft white roads. The grey square buildings are dusted with white too and it all looks a bit cold (just quietly).

I’m compelled to explain to the girl next to me that the last time I saw snow it was 1984. I was with my family, in a caravan, on the east coast of Australia. Graham and I got a photograph of our identical grins, and a snowman we didn’t build, on the front page of The Australian. I had pink mittens and pink skis and Murray’s bottom lip (age 3) would quiver when Graham and I pushed him, our little brother, down slopes in a toboggan. Dad told us that the ice on the roadside came from people emptying their Eskys.

Juls meets me at the airport. She glides into the foyer in a stylish red coat with flecks of snow still on her shoulders. The elegant wave to the rim of her black fur hat cuts a regal silhouette, and gently shades her face, huge blue eyes and the warmest, toothy smile.

Juls mate, it’s good to see you.

Obscure Tangents

[Esky: Named after the Australian brand of coolers manufactured by Nylex, the Esky is the colloquial name Australians use for any portable cooler, and is the quintessential element of an Aussie bbq.]