Það er nokkuð kalt úti. Spáð frosti alla vikuna, á að bæta í vind þannig að það gæti orðið allnokkur kæling.
Fyrir tæpum hundrað og fimmtíu árum tóku Íslendingar að flykkjast til Kanada. Þeir fóru frá hinu kalda og blauta landi á svæði þar sem voru miklu meiri kuldar. Frost sem getur farið niður í mínus 50 stig. Loftslagið hlýtur að hafa komið þeim í opna skjöldu. Svo komu sumur, þau voru mjög heit og mikið um skordýr.
Svæðið sem nefndist Nýja Ísland verður seint talið einhver verðurfarsparadís.
Vinur minn, rithöfundurinn Bill Valgardson, skrifar frásögn af veðurfari í Gimli sem ég birti hér að neðan. Þess má geta að nýlega kom út á íslensku bókin Ævintýri og sögur frá Nýja Íslandi eftir Bill, í þýðingu Böðvars Guðmundssonar. Sjálfur er Bill alinn upp í Gimli, en býr nú í mildara loftslagi í Victoria við vesturströnd Kanada.
Frásögnina birti hann á Facebook. Hún er á ensku, þarna segir frá skóladrengjum sem eru karlar í krapinu og eru á skyrtunni í 10 stiga frosti, þykir það ekkert tiltökumál.
Heard some people say that it was really cold in Gimli today. It was only -10. When I was a boy, -10 was considered the end of summer. We walked to school with our jackets open, our galoshers open. Some guys went to school in their shirt sleeves. We used to go down to the beach in -10 and have driftwood fires so we could roast wieners. When it was -30, we still had recess. The principal made us play soccer. We raced full speed after the ball. If you stopped, you froze in place and the teachers had to come and carry you into the school and thaw you out over the radiators. We had so many layers of clothes by then that we were forty teletubbies chasing a frozen soccer ball. If someone fell down, he couldn’t get up because of all the layers of clothes. Friends had to stand him up so he could start running again before he solidified. When it got to -40 we weren’t supposed to have to go out for recess. However, our principal was from Siberia. He didn’t think it was cold. Sissys, he used to say as we bunched up at the door looking at the air which had turned white. On really cold days, our mothers wrapped our heads in long scarves so only our eyes showed. So that we wouldn’t freeze our lungs, they wrapped the scarves over our mouth and nose. To make sure the scarf wouldn’t come undone, t hey stapled it to our forehead. When we got to school, just inside the door was a teacher with a staple puller who pulled out the staples. Otherwise, sitting in class, steam started rising from our heads and we made gurgling sounds. If there were a lot of -40 days, our foreheads looked like we’d been shooting up and not getting it right or had been put in a snake pit with only our foreheads exposed. We were thrilled when the school suggested our mothers use tape. -10 Pshaw! A walk in the park. A dip in the lake. A roll in the snow.
