Snow Pants

It is shortly past 7:00 am as I write this and there is a two inch or so layer of nice new, wet snow showing in the early morning light. I will have to go and dig out my snow boots. I did not do this for the first snowfall because I knew it would melt, but this one is here for a while. And, this morning, I am grateful for … synthetics.

I grew up, you see, wearing wool winter clothes. And when they got wet, as you played outside, they stayed wet. Your mother had to hang them by a heat source to dry them and so you got one chance a day to skate or make snowmen or whatever. I got my first waterproof jacket sometime in, as I recall, university. And after I was married and my husband decided we would be snowmobilers, I got my first synthetic snowsuit. Bib pants with zippers, a matching jacket, and boots with an outer waterproof layer and felt liners. For the first time ever I was warm outside in the winter and it was wonderful. A revelation.

I know I have photos of myself encased in wool; I just have not got the time or patience to find them. But I did easily pull this one of myself in, I think, my second snowsuit; this one less bulky, as when you are working in the sugarbush, you get quite warm.

Note the mukluks. They were leather, useful with snowshoes, and were waterproofed by being rubbed with a wax product called, as I recall, 'Dubbin'. It came in a can and you got a fingerful of it and rubbed it in. Worked. Sort of.

 We had purchased, as recreational land, a hundred-acre plot that had been farmed once. Then it was probably logged over several times and it had grown back as ‘bush’ – many younger trees with trails through them. We used the snowmobiles to explore this land and surrounding trails and later to facilitate making maple syrup. The children travelled with us in a sleigh pulled behind my machine, and later, riding behind us. And they had synthetic snowsuits that could be wiped down, shaken off and dried quickly. I could put their soggy felt boot liners close to a heat source and back on their feet quite quickly. We got snowshoes and, later, cross-country skis. Winter was fun; for them and for me.

When my parents moved from Windsor to eastern Ontario, a colder and wetter climate, I persuaded my mother into snow pants. She loved them. My father bought a snowblower for the driveway and garments to go with it. He also discovered lined mittens. They both had quite a bit to say about the winter weather, but they managed it.

Just in closing, in the hall closet sits a pair of mukluks, belongings of the daughter presently living in Europe. She left them here last winter and I keep meaning to put a coat of waterproofing on them. Before she comes home this winter. I guess what goes around, comes around. After I dig out my boots, I will probably dig out the Dubbin.