Through the Looking Glass: 37. Canadian Winter Fashion

Thursday, December 13, 2012

37. Canadian Winter Fashion

Canada is reknown worldwide for it's 'cold' products. Snow, frigid air and general iceberg exports have been famous since they sank the Titanic. Polar bears.. requited by coca cola, arctic islands ... envied by the world... and more Northern Lights than could ever be sold are all within the the influence of the Great White North.

Canadians suffer whiteout blizzards and killing cold with wood stoves, mukluks and smiles. There is little north of the 49^th that we cannot survive. Mittens, Hudson's Bay blankets and Eskimo parkas are the norm... and sacrosanct during the dark months.

A recent observation however, has lent proof to the Americanization of Canadian fashion. Driving down a white icy road I recently spied a pair of average teens on the sidewalk. Walking in a minus 25 degree wind chill they were clothed in t-shirts, cotton hoodies pulled back down over their shoulders and runners... At first I suspected they might be waifs put upon by an indifferent world but then I noted a high school building coming up on my right.

Tights, deck shoes and 'cool' spilled out unendingly into the cold. Not a scarf or mitten or single mukluk to be seen. More in tune with L.A., Malibu and other various tropical climes it seemed the basic tenant of Canadian cold was being violated. A wealth of under-dressed noon time bodies floated between the angling, blown flakes of snow as the lean, mean and cool lunchtime crowd was spilling into the street seeking pizza, subs and burgers. The hunter/gatherer instinct was not to be suppressed by something as simple as threat of frostbite... potential hypothermia or frozen eyeballs.

When the shock of the obvious wore off and the memory of my own youth returned I shuddered. I remembered frostbitten buttocks of a winter, adolescent adventure. I tried to expel a memory of a sleepless night during a winter survival course. I recalled driving in a winter storm where my headlights were dimmed by the blowing snow that accumulated on them.

I know that I have given more importance to the age I needed to get my drivers licence age than to the minimum age required for voting and put more attention on the pointiness of my shoes and style of my jeans than than the assassination of world leaders. I confess and am taken aback.

As I step into the youth of my old age I realize the insight of Darwin,'What does or doesn't kill us helps us grow into whatsoever we will become' (paraphrased)

We of the 'gray-haired lot' simply advise... ' Don't give up on the gene pool... logic beats style every time'.

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Introduction

Having moved at least twenty-five times in fifteen years has opened a world of learning to me. In six decades, an education ranging from the coldness of large cities to the isolation of remote rural locations to the busybody gossip of small towns and the wonder of the prairie and it's ocean of grass have all left their impressions on me.

Recently I relocated to a small city in British Columbia. It touted itself as a historical, cultural, educational and, over-all wonderful, place to live. Once I was past the trees and the rocks, the heights and the hills, the water and the wind, I calmed down and was ready to look at the people I was sharing that space with.

Every location I have ever squatted has had it's share of characters. Players in the cities along with the wide range of tinfoil hat wearers and baggy pants skaters were a given. Pop up strangers at odd hours surprised me with their appearance in the middle of nowhere. Rumours of my serial killer past from neighbours I had never met never swayed me. The wonder of gazing on the effects of wind on the grass ocean interrupted by a landowner enquiring why I was leaning on his fence was oft forgiven.

In this new locale a variety of characters as I had experienced elsewhere was a given. The density and variety of them however gave me more surprise than I would have expected.

I had heard comments about this place being a time warp to the sixties. However I only saw few that , by their appearance, I could say lived through the sixties. What apparitions appeared were younger and more colourful than I remember from that vague decade.

Purple haired strong armed accordionists, heavy head shaved violinists clutching tiny instruments, winter coated scarf wrapped individuals in shorts and oddly calm people with large coffees wandered the streets.

They wandered in and out of new age crystal shops, expressed opinions on local radio, bought nothing but organic food. They played jazz on squeeze boxes, made strings and wood sing in ways not intended, talked to themselves as they tightened their scarves and became more serene with each sip of coffee.

Characters here are more concentrated than in any other locale I have ever lived. It is a point of interest as well as point of concern.

It remains to be seen whether I will be mugged with organic carrots, side swiped by hooligan mountain bikers, be harangued with advice on dressing warmly or kept awake nights by jazzy sounds from an errant squeeze box. Whatever the outcome I am certain I could find it in no other place on earth to explore these particular uncertainties.

Until I am transplanted again, I extend every new-ager and boarder, every subculture economist and spiritualist, every would-be and wanna-be my deep thanks for extending me the opportunity of educating myself one measure more.