Explorer Book

Canadians, Pierre Berton writes, are not only a winter people but are also, by reputation, a wintry people, 'frosty of mien, cool of temperament, chilly of countenance. . .not given to public displays of hot emotion' - except at the hockey rink, when players bash each other and the crowd calls for blood. And that, he says, is just part of the paradox of our most fascinating season. In this highly personal evocation of winter, Berton insists that Canadians hate out longest season and will do anything to escape from it - burrowing underground in pedestrian malls, joining buildings together with glassed-in walkways, banishing the February "blahs" with carnivals and snow fests, fleeing to Hawaii or Florida to elude subarctic gales. But, says Berton, there's one thing we hate even more, and that's the outsider's image of Canada as a stark and frozen wasteland. When pushed, Canadians will admit to a relationship with winter that is in fact of a love/hate nature: we respect it, and can easily find beauty within its icy demeanour. André Gallant's stunning photographs support these themes, showing winter in it's infinite variety, from the twilight blue of a Dawson City noon hour to the mauve sunsets of Victoria in March, from the brilliant kaleidoscope of the Quebec Winter Carnival to the coruscating icebergs of Baffin Island. Here, too, are rare archival photographs of Old Tyme Winter in the days when imaginative photographers escaped the wintry blasts by lining their heated studios with fake snow to simulate the outdoors.