Figured I might as well say a few things to make my location sound more Northern. So here are some Fort Nelson stats:
Latitude: 58 degrees, 50 minutes N
Population: 5,000
Distance to nearest city: 200 miles
Ambulance station catchment area: 110,000 sq. km, 10% of B.C.’s total area.
Daily hours of pitch black during the winter: About 18
Elevation of the sun at noon on the year’s shortest day: About 8 degrees.
First frost this year: Aug. 17
First snow this year: Sep. 30
Here are some of the things that impress you when you get further south again:
Roads with two lanes each way.
Stop lights.
9-1-1 service.
Tim Horton’s. (Embarassing, but true)
Single women.
Movie theatres, and most importantly,
Ghost cars.
Here’s how Fort Nelson people know when it’s cold:
Your vehicle’s tires freeze into shape when you’re parked at night.
Ice is no longer slippery.
Your breath freezes into your nose hairs.
School is cancelled. (At -20 C, the elementary school still has recess outside.)
During the winter, oil and logging roads are made out of ice. They clear a strip through the trees and pour layers of water and mud until the surface is smooth. Then they rough up the top for better grip. The speed limit on the bigger roads is 80 km/hr, but a lot of people go more like 110, and we won’t even discuss what some people do in an ambulance.
More later, maybe.
hi benjameeks.
man, you have such a way with words.. i have read all of your posts. i like the one about the shoes. (mind, i like all of them..) it gives new meaning to why i take my shoes of in mine and other people’s houses – not just because it makes the floors dirty (esp. in a northern town) but out of respect. also, it brings more light to the fact that more Westerners’ houses are shoes-on and Asian and other cultures’ houses are strictly shoes-off.
i’ve NEVER heard the one about the vehicle’s tires freezing into shape at night… at approximately what temperature does that happen at?
this may be an easier and faster way to talk about various issues.
Woah! Talk to you soon!