Spring in Newfoundland

Ahh, spring in Newfoundland...

The soft light filters through the cloudy skies, glinting joyously off the gently falling snowflakes. The sidewalks of St. John’s abound with dazzling browns and grays as the mountains of snow from the winter past ebb away, revealing layer after glorious layer of filth swept aside with gay abandon by the numerous snow plows from the preceding season. The soothing splish-splosh of the slush underfoot calms the soul. The ice patches shine like mirrors pointed to the skies, keeping you on your toes and ensuring there is never a dull moment on even the shortest of spring jaunts. The twiggy trees swaying in the (gale force) breeze, adorned with patches of brightly-coloured, rustling plastic bags, provide a soft, crackling soundtrack. And who could feel uptight in the peaceful solitude offered by the pea-soup fog rolling in off the Atlantic?

No, we don’t celebrate Spring Day here in St. John’s. In fact, it snowed on Spring Day and the next day was -9ºC. There’s an advert on TV here with a family staring eagerly out their window at the thermometer. Suddenly the mercury rises from 14ºC to 15ºC and they all leap up like children and run outside to celebrate spring. And you know what? I found myself thinking; “Man, it’s going to be great when it gets up to 15!”. 15! The goalposts have certainly shifted for me since I arrived here. But they stopped showing that advert more than a month ago and we still haven’t reached 15 in Newfoundland.

It seems that advert was targeted to the rest of Canada, British Columbia (Vancouver) in particular. In BC they have the annual “Bloom Count” in March where everybody goes outside and they count all the flowers they have. It’s their poncy way of showing off to the rest of Canada. Meanwhile back in St. John’s, more than two months since that blooming count, the darling buds of May wouldn't dare show their faces around these parts. But fog? You bet. We call it RDF weather – rain, drizzle, fog. And that pretty much sums it up so far, although there have been 2 or 3 days where the sun graced us with its presence. All in all, its making me miss winter a little bit. Winter was exciting: great piles of snow, crisp cold winds, getting days off work because of blizzards. But you don’t get a day off work because it’s miserable out. Also, the thermometer says its warmer but it feels colder. I had heard many people say that St. John’s has a "different kind of cold". Sounds like a stupid thing to say, and I thought so too. However, -10ºC in winter didn’t seem quite as bad as -2ºC in spring. This damp cold chills to the bone.



But, my sarcastic prelude and subsequent bitching session aside, there are some really beautiful aspects to this season here. For me in particular being new to these parts, I am once more getting to experience weather types I have never dealt with. One of them being freezing fog. Now I know this doesn't sound too pleasant, and it isn't, but it does have a neat side effect. It coats everything it can surround with a fine (and sometimes reasonably thick) layer of clear ice. Tree branches (down to the finest twig), fences, telephone wires… all of these take on an incredible silvery sheen and if the sun comes out they shine beautifully. The trees make this awesome crackling sound as they sway in the wind (another thing we have plenty of this time of year). The photos I have got don’t really do it justice, and it’s hard to capture the overall effect on film/pixels.



As the temperature rises the glaciers and ice caps up north start to break up sending icebergs and ice floes down south towards us in the Labrador Current. I’m very keen to see an iceberg but iceberg season isn’t due for a couple of weeks. I did get to see the pack ice a few days ago. Peter (my supervisor) got word that the pack ice had drifted done into some of the bays north of St. John’s. So we took off work and went to check it out. The open sea was clear but all the bays were completely covered with ice floes slowing rising up and down with the swell. I got out and jumped from floe to floe a little bit in Torbay harbour but it started getting a bit slushy about 30m out and the last thing you want is a swim amongst the ice floes. Again, the photos don’t quite capture the overall effect or the incredible colours of the ice, some of which is this incredible light blue (the kind that would be perfect for one of those cool-as-ice peppermint bubble gums).