Snow in Manitoba

It also snowed in Manitoba! Patrick and I went camping for three days over the New Year's weekend, and it was lovely weather until the morning we were supposed to get up in enough time to drive back to the city for a massive New Year's brunch. I cannot emphasize the importance of this brunch...picture everything you would normally put in a brunch, and then add little luxuries like an omlette bar, curry, dessert table and endless cups of tea. Think of a brunch worth driving through a blizzard for, and you get the general idea.

So. The first two days were lovely and clear, and really freakishly warm for that time of year, around 15 below. Here are some pictures.




Then, on that fateful final day, we slept in! I woke up around half seven and noticed how warm and dark it was in the tent and concluded that it must still be very early, that I didn't really need the loo, and that I could safely doze for a nice long time. Some time later, Patrick had the presence of mind to check his watch and realized we had slept an hour too long. Why, you may ask? Because the tent was completely covered in snow! About a foot of snow, in fact. A blizzard had blown in the night before and covered everything. So we skipped breakfast, packed up and trudged back across the lake (which was in a complete white-out, by the way) and found the van also covered in a foot of snow and the highways closed.

This is what the lake look liked as we got to shore:


But to cut a long story short, we braved the back highways, which were not closed, dashed into the house to change (but not shower) and arrived at brunch only half an hour late (and stinky). It was a very dramatic entrance.

But it seems I got lucky. I received an e-mail from Winnipeg today telling me that the temperature has dropped to -48 with windchill.