It's the Cleaners!

In the continuing theme of things to get used to, there are some unusual vehicles on Canada's roads. Some of them I haven't even been able to define properly yet, they're so unfamiliar to me. Strange little cleaning machines and sweepers, as well as trucks with odd attachments and devices I just don't know the functions of*.

There are more identifiable vehicles as well, things that one can guess what they're for or know from seeing them on television and in the media. Snow ploughs for example. Or, as they spell it here, "plow"**.

Most of the ones you see around look like pickup trucks with a blade or two attached to the front, as seen below.

 

Many of the ones I see around here aren't as nice as the one in this picture, but what do you expect for a work vehicle that shovels snow and gets corroded out by salt?

The average Australian probably wouldn't think about how Canadians clear their highways. It wasn't something that really occurred to me before I started living here, that's for sure. Highways are just as important here as in Australia, if not moreso given there doesn't seem to be a passenger rail network covering most towns the way Victoria's does.

The road network here is really rather awe-inspiring, and even out here in the country the highways are lit and, as we discovered on one blizzard filled day on a trip to a town north of here, very well cleared.

That is the back of one of the highway clearers, and they're rather a sight to behold. I haven't seen a machine quite as impressive since I visited the mines in Kalgoorlie over twenty years ago. I wasn't able to get a good picture of the business end of the plough, but here's a fictional representation of what they reminded me of.

Labyrinth - ©Jim Henson Productions

Ok, so I might have indulged in a little hyperbole. Not by much, though! They may not be mine loaders or borers, but for something you just see out on the roads as a (winter) day-to-day thing, they're definitely impressive. Some have massive rotating drillheads to bite their way through major drifts, and given the amount of snow we've seen this last winter, you could see why.

These things tear through the snow and push it to the side of the road in as efficient a way as they can. They also spinkle the roads with the aforementioned salt to keep the road from becoming too covered over with rime before they can get back, as well as to give other vehicles a little more traction as they head to wherever they're going.

They're some of the scariest bloody things I've seen on a roadway, ever. Yet also, quite awe-inspiring.

One day I want to see one of the railway snow ploughs. Those things have to be huge!

*Yet. One day I shall find out and dutifully blog about them for others to peruse. It's a duty.

**Anyone else rhyme that with "snow" or "slow"? Just me? Ok.

Read all about it!

There's been a lot to get used to in these first months here in Canada; some things you just wouldn't think about until you're actually presented with them.

Case in point: newsagencies. In Victorian towns at the very least, they're the go-to place for not only newspapers but magazines, stationary, special occasion cards, and oddments along those lines. Every town has at least one, and Melbourne suburbs have several. Most shopping centres and strips have at least one, often with a Post Office tucked away at the back so you get even more services from the one little shopfront.

It doesn't seem to be the same here. Newspapers are dispensed from machines (or delivered in a flurry of junk mail to your door, but that's no different to Melbourne. We used to call Hoppers Crossing the junk mail capital of Australia given that if we didn't keep on top of it, legitimate mail would blow away down the street as it no longer fitted in the box).

We're not unfamiliar with the concept, and have similar machines in Inner Melbourne, but you have to remember that I'm now living in a relatively small town and it's very common here.

I thnk the snow plough just went through...

I have to wonder why. I hope that those who really like to read their papers have them delivered on the blizzard days, because I can imagine how hard it must be to both deliver and purchase them with the machine buried under all that snow!

There are specialist shops around such as the Hallmark Store, and Wal-Mart and the like certainly sell a wide selection of magazines and stationary items. They also sell greeting cards for all kinds of celebrations I'd not have thought of. However there simply isn't the abundance of newsagencies we're used to back in Melbourne. It's not quite the same seeing little bunches of newspaper machines clustered on street corners as it was to go into the local newsagent. It kind of reminds me of this:

Daleks are ©BBC and Terry Nation

"YOU WILL BUY A PAPER OR BE EX-TER-MIN-ATED!"

I suspect I may watch a wee bit much Doctor Who. 

The Bone Trees

I sit here at my table, looking out on a world that is slowly waking up from winter. The grass is starting to show itself as green again after months of being covered by layers of white, and life is returning.

Over these months it has been the apparent death of things which has affected me the most. Where I come from, bare, blackened branches clawing toward the sky represent death; fire perhaps, or blight. Australia is a place of evergreen, khaki and brown, where things may turn yellow in the blistering sun but will only shed their foliage in the most dire of times and come back to life at the merest hint of rain. When things truly die, the locals mourn.

Canada is a land of contrasts, where the seasons truly change and the cycles of life are illustrated in the weather. We have been buried in white for months, broken only by the black of trees denuded by the cold. Their twisted skeletons stripped of their finery seem laid bare in death, and are a morbid reminder of what lies ahead of us all. To sleep, perchance to dream of sunshine.

It is this which has been the most depressing part of winter for me. The cold I could tolerate, and it's true when they say that after a certain point you don't really feel the difference in temperature anymore. Funnily enough it's as it's warming up now - around 0 degrees Celcius - that I'm feeling chilled again. Yet one can put on more clothes, stoke the fire and turn up the furnace until we can make believe that it's as warm without as it is within. One look at the trees, though, and you know that it's dead cold.

The highways are lined with maple trees and other kinds of evergreens, and this place is spectacular in the warmer months. Even now I can see them starting to bud, and know there is the promise of beauty in the barrenness. However, as we travelled through the winter-huddled trees,  their empty branches reaching for the sun, what I saw were hands beseeching the world to be less brutal. It was wearying after a while, deep in a part of me that quietly believes that trees only look this way when their world has ended.

I've been a long-time member of Team Winter, but I am glad the sun is coming back out again. Like the Canadians around me, I am pleased to see the snow going for another year. Bring on the squirrels.

Feeling Extra Sheepish

Canada, you've made me quite happy.

There was a whole freezer load of lamb and lamb product at the supermarket we went to! It's even local!

Now I just have to find where they keep the live sheepies. Friends and a little Googling have lead me to believe that sheep are farmed around the town of Fergus, and The Husband and I hope to travel there sometime soonish to go have a look. Well that and there's a sheep cheese co-op up there we want to inspect. The Husband does love him some sheep cheese.