Let It Snow. Darryl Humber

      We acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

       J. Kirk Howard, President

      www.dundurn.com Published by Natural Heritage Books A Member of The Dundurn Group

      Front cover image © Ben Heys/ iStockphoto

      Back cover images: (top) Unidentified group of snowshoers, circa 1914. Manitoba Archives, Foote Collection N2175. (bottom) “Canadian Winter Sports: A Ladies’ Hockey Team, Toronto, Canada.” Author’s collection

       TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Foreword by Mayor Hazel McCallion

• Acknowledgements

• Introduction

1 Wishing Winter Was Nine Months Long: Winter in Canada’s Past

2 How Winter Has Shaped Canadian Identity from Literature to Art

3 Winter Sports in Canada from Snowshoeing to Cross-Country Skiing

       4 Canadian Winter Sports from Curling to Snowboarding

       5 Our International Glory and How Winter Sports Made It Possible

       6 Hockey in Legend, History, and Modern Times

       7 Climate Change: Mitigation, Resilience, and Adaptation Strategies

       8 The Meaning of Climate Change for the Future of Winter and Its Sports

       9 The Romance of Winter Sports: Will It Eventually Go Indoors

       • Notes and Sources

       • Index

       • About the Authors

FOREWORD by Hazel McCallion, C.M.

      I have been Mayor of the City of Mississauga, Canada’s sixth-largest city and Ontario’s third largest, for over thirty years and am well aware of the ways in which our patterns of urban growth have had an effect not only on our quality of life, but conditions, like the weather, we take for granted.

      As a young girl growing up in Quebec, I enjoyed the winter months when we counted on snowfalls and freezing nights to make the ice strong for skating and the hills alive with the sound of toboggans.

      Those winters made it possible for me to eventually play professional women’s hockey in Montreal, though my salary of five dollars a game might not turn too many heads today.

      However, we can’t be certain any longer about what kind of winter we might get — some have lots of snow, others barely a flake. But we’re beginning to understand that the places in which we live have an impact on our climate. The long-term prognosis of many experts isn’t encouraging. It would be sad indeed if the Winter Olympics in Vancouver 2010 was the last time we could hold outdoor winter events in Canada because of the season’s unpredictability.