Brrr.

Weather is one of my favourite things to complain about, along with politicians, terrorists and dough brained 911 callers. While the other three have satiated my inner urge to criticize all things crazy this past year (click here, here and here), the weather has not. Last winter was so mild that only a Saharan camel teleported to Northwestern Ontario could have found something to gripe about. This year has been "normal" so far, whatever that means, so we shouldn't complain when January acts like it normally does in the peripheral edge of the universe. Here's Upsala at -38:

If that sounds cold, believe me it is. I'm glad I dug out my Upsala Hydrant yesterday, instead of today. And I hope I don't have to actually use it, at least until April. Defying nature by trying to make water flow at forty degrees below zero is never fun.

It is cold here, by most people's definition, but not as cold as Baker Lake, which had a high of -42 today and projected low of -48 tomorrow. You may recall that I tried to theorize that Upsala was the middle of somewhere, but proved instead that it really is the middle of nowhere. In the process, I discovered that Baker Lake is the geographic centre of Canada. I'm still glad I don't live there, by the way.

Then there is Victoria, BC, which had a high of 9 today. And it's in Canada. How is this possible?

On a totally different topic, I found a writer/firefighter over at the Rescue 1 site that I'm going to keep an eye on. Check out his view on nosy neighbours.