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Canadian Life as I Found It
Chapter XXXIV December, 1906


WE have been having fearful weather all this time, blizzard after blizzard. I went to town again with one of the neighbours and we got caught in a blizzard, rather a bad one, but luckily we were only half a mile from the stopping place, and our teams had the sense to make straight for it. The snow was so thick that I could not see my horses' heads, and the cold was terrible; I have never, I think, been so cold in my life. However, we got to town and back without being frost-bitten. Others did not fare so well, for I heard that poor S was in hospital, with both feet frozen. It is a sad business for him, and a great trial for his wife.

I also heard that a school teacher had been found frozen to death, lost on the prairie. Certainly this winter has commenced rather badly. I only hope that it will not get worse, for I have all my firewood still to get up.

Next year ought to be a good year for the crops, for no one remembers such deep snow as we have now, over 2 feet deep; not very pleasant to walk through, I can assure you.

We are beginning to think about Christmas. We are going to have the same crowd as last year, so you can think of us on that day, a few forlorn Englishmen doing their best to imagine that they are at home. New Year's Day, if fine, we go and spend with our Scotch neighbours. Some other people invited us, but they are too far off for us to go there at this time of the year; we might be caught in a storm and not be able to get home for two or three days.

My animals are all well up to now; my heifer has calved and given me a fine bull calf, which I shall try and keep, as he will do for our winter's food next year.

You must not mind or get anxious, if you do not get letters so frequently for a month or two. We avoid as much as possible going far from our shacks, unless obliged to, when the snow lies so deep over everything, for it is not easy to find one's way for one reason, and another is the fear of being overcome by the intense cold.


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