Hail Bravehearts!
Awesome! The wonder of life in a new land. Brilliant and courageous, the spirit soars. Life in a new land. All unchartered, all unknown, all mysterious with secrets to reveal.
The sound of the wind as a storm blows in. Batten down the hatches, close the shutters, stock up the wood supply, fill the larder. The soft quiet of winter is blowing in with the storm. Swirling, dainty flakes of white, fill the air and the temperatures have plunged to zero. ” Let it snow!” we sing. “Let it snow!” For us the first snowfall fills our lives with the changing season and brings joy to our world. Joy to the world, the winter has come!
Mother Earth sends her children off to a deep winters sleep in hibernation. The migrating birds have called to each other to flee the snowbound north and fly to warm destinations in the south. The rest seek shelter in the depths of the forest, where thickets protect them and the shelter of the trees hide them from the elements and the cold.
Winter. The Earth wraps it’s sleepy head in a soft blanket of snow and sleeps.
The snow falls, it’s quiet intrusion freezes the ground and the lakes and now the water sleeps. Deep change with the deep freeze and winter storms and icy blasts greet us for the next few months. Snow! It piles high. Higher and higher. A few inches, a few feet, higher and higher. While those snug in their warm homes watch in anticipation of the changing season, the snow comes. Beautiful and white, dazzling in the sun. The spectacular change is a gorgeous site. Still it snows! It snows relentlessly. It snows, and snows and snows.
http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/Canada/snowiest.php Snowiest places in Canada
The animals vanish and the world is changed. Higher and higher the snow piles in deep feet of snow. The weather persists. Winter storms rage in. A tiny colony of stalwart humans, set in for the long winters’ sleep. The larder is full, the woodpile stocked high, prepared for the winter and ready for anything, the tiny colony waits out the deep chill. And it snows!
Our greatest passions are winter fun, winter play and winter sports, but for us, survival is expected. We are secure now, in our grand and special place. A place of sport and hospitality, of snowmen and snow angels. We learn at an early age to enjoy the spectacular change in season and the joy and privilege that it brings. A breed of sportsmen, playing and laughing, thrilled for the joy that winter brings.
But a small colony of people, out in the lonely wild, of eastern Canada, did not enjoy the snowbound world so much. In the early 1600’s our great joy of winter, was their peril. The sleepy, quiet snow, lulled the great planet to sleep. It nodded it’s great head in slumber and the world slept. In darkness and cold, the colony sank into slumber as well. The tragedy of the cold, snowy, winter, taking its toll of human life, as temperatures plunged, as the snow fell, as food rations were depleated and disease set in and many lives were lost.
written by Dr. Louise Hayes
November 23, 2015