The Heat is On

Man, it’s a hot one
Like seven inches from the midday sun
Well, I hear you whisper and the words melt everyone
But you stay so cool

—Smooth, Rob Thomas and Santana, June 1999

It’s 9 a.m., and already I can feel the heat of the day. 24 degrees right now (that’s Celsius, so about 75 Fahrenheit). Yes, Canada switched from imperial to metric in April 1975. I remember it well. I was a high schooler just about to get my driver’s license, and it was a very confusing yet exciting time. The novelty didn’t last very long as I and other Canadians began to struggle with converting everything from gas to groceries—not to mention how far to park from the curb on a driver’s test!

Weather is the number one topic of conversation in Saskatchewan, at any time and place. They say it’s because we are largely an agricultural province, and farmers depend on the weather to make it or break it. Conditions can be too dry or too wet. Hail can wipe out the best crop ever in mere seconds. Not enough snow means not enough moisture in the land come spring. Too much snow can lead to flooding. It is a risky business.

Most of us here know not to put much stock in what the weather channel says. The big joke is: whose weather app offers the best forecast? Or, give it five minutes, and it will change. The best way to know what it’s like outside is to just go outside, sniff the air, tilt your face to the heavens, and howl like a wolf. Just kiddin’. But seriously, the weather here is very hard to predict, and it differs from one part of the province to the next. It’s a big province, land-wise. It can even vary from one part of the city to another. It’s not unusual for my husband to text me a video of flooding in one area and ask me to check the basement at home. What for? It’s as dry as a bone here. Tell me honestly, have you ever worn a pair of shorts and a parka at the same time? Turned on the furnace only to switch to the AC in a few hours? Yep, the weather makes a great conversation piece.

It is supposed to reach the mid-30s today, and a storm is predicted for about 6 p.m. I can feel how heavy the air is as if those few clouds hovering up high are just waiting to let loose on their victims below. The lightning here can be spectacular! Art in the sky. A couple of weeks ago, we had a mini-heatwave. Temperatures reached the high 20s and sometimes into the low to mid-30s. That’s warm for the end of June or early July. It was also very windy. It was so windy that tree branches were breaking, trampolines were blowing around, and garbage containers were all over the place. I feared for our chihuahua. But the following week, our nighttime temperatures were very cold. It went down to 3 degrees! That’s like 37 Fahrenheit! That is not typical July weather!

When it’s sunny, it’s sunny. The prairies, meaning Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, get more sunshine than any other part of Canada. The southern parts of these provinces receive more than 2400 hours of sunshine annually, while the rest of the provinces get more than 2,000 hours. Some areas of Canada, especially those along the Pacific coast, see only 1200 to 1400 hours of sunshine per year, according to Meteorologist Christy Climenhaga. My city is right in the middle, but it is usually referred to as the northern part of the province.

The weather in Saskatchewan is fairly predictable in July and August, when it is dry and hot, making them the two months of the year that people look forward to with great excitement. School is out, there are cabins and lakes to visit, and Roughrider games to watch (our province’s CFL team). Come on, are you googling CFL? It’s the Canadian version of the NFL. In fact, a lot of the players are from the US; they were deemed too small or not quite good enough to play in the NFL, so they were scouted and drafted to Canada. But they love it here! Back to summer. There are music festivals, cultural festivals, food festivals, fireworks festivals, and basically any other kind of festival you can imagine. Every weekend has something going on.

I remember summer as a kid and those long days, filled with nothing to do but play with friends and fire up the imagination. We had to. We didn’t have computers, cell phones, or anything else back in those days—just three channels on TV, and one of them was in French! For my non-Canadian readers, did you know that Canada has two official languages? You got it. French and English I am an Anglophone and only studied French in school. I know basic greetings, but that’s it. According to Statistics Canada, there are far more English speakers in the country than French speakers and most of the Francophones are in the eastern provinces of Quebec and Ontario. My province has the second-lowest French population. The downside is that if you want to get a good job with the federal government, you may need to speak at least some French.

Anyway, summer as a kid meant going to the lake for a few weeks. My dad would drop my mom and me off and leave us for a few days, commuting from home once or twice a week. Sometimes I took a friend. We sure had a lot of fun, got into a lot of good, wholesome trouble, and made a lot of lasting memories. (Have you ever sliced a banana down the middle, stuffed it with chocolate, wrapped it up in tinfoil, and then thrown it in the fire? Delicious!) There were also long drives out to visit family in British Columbia. I loved that. I always got a bunch of new Archie comics to read and spent countless hours chewing Double Bubble gum and eating mojos, especially the banana-flavoured ones. Sometimes we would take a venture into the US, stopping at Mount Rushmore, driving through the Black Hills, or laughing at Bismark because Canadians have a donut called a bismark! Here’s a piece of trivia: Canada and the US share the longest international border in the world. The 8,891 km (5,525 miles) border stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It involves eight Canadian provinces and 13 American states. There is even a six-meter-wide area called the “no touch zone”. Watch this video to get a good idea of what that is all about.

When my kids were younger, we used to go on weekend camping trips to provincial parks and then take a “big” trip, spending two or three weeks exploring another province. They vaguely remember those experiences now, but I’m hopeful that someday they will remember something that causes a smile or a slight laugh at some silly thing that happened. (Probably including me!) When they got older and decided they’d rather hang out with friends or get a summer job, we sold the camper. Tenting doesn’t hold the same appeal now as it used to, so we take a short vacation and book an Air BnB. Longer trips are left for the winter.

Enough time writing about vacations and the weather. It’s time to get out and enjoy it. Get some real-life experience, you know. Soak up some Vitamin D. I hope you are doing the same!

Interesting Reads & Things

Remembering Saskatchewan’s 10 worst weather events | CBC News

Funny and Weird Weather | Best Nature Fails | FailArmy – YouTube

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – Summer 2020 – YouTube

Extreme winter in Saskatchewan | -43°C in Saskatoon | Life in Saskatchewan Canada – YouTube

SUMMER VACATION 1/2 – Topi the Corgi – YouTube

Canada tornado strikes Saskatchewan! Tornado touches down near Foam Lake and Watrous areas – YouTube

Сrazy Weather in Canada! Scary Blizzard in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Feb. 01, 2022) – YouTube

The Bizarre Origin & History of ARCHIE: From Comics to Riverdale Explained! – YouTube