This Ontario Ice Storm Even Kicked an Albertan's Ass

There are few things you get to brag about when you’re from Alberta—oil money, for sure, the Oilers in the 80s, and… and that’s pretty much it. Well, we can also brag about the fact we survive in a hellscape for six months a year, and brag about it we do.

If I’m going to be honest, because of my northern Albertan pedigree I’ve been pretty fucking cocky when it comes to cold weather in Toronto—I didn’t zip up my jacket for all of last year’s (pretty mild-ass) winter. I constantly make fun of co-workers, and when it’s super cold outside and my friends are shivering in the smoke pit I’m all like “this ain’t cold”—yeah… I’m that fucking guy.

However, that changed this weekend as Toronto became more ice than city. A massive ice storm rolled through this weekend bringing 100 km/h winds, taking down trees on to unsuspecting cars and leaving tens of thousand of people without power. With that wind came freezing rain that turned sidewalks and roads into either skating rinks or swimming pools. Over 1000 crashes were reported over the storm and 400 incoming and departing flights were canceled. The storm is still having lasting effects with many, many schools in the area being closed today.

I’ve made fun of people wearing massive coats when it first hit -5, and when a coworker wore their giant Sorel boots the first time there was half an inch of snow on the ground I smirked with the delight of the Grinch after a Who tragically dies in a house fire.

However, after experiencing this weekend, I’m here to say I’m sorry.

Before I get into my mea culpa though, I have to get something off my chest. There is something significantly different about the winters in places where Mother Nature is actively trying to kill you as opposed to where winter is an inconvenience. To know that if your car breaks down, or if you’re homeless, or if you for whatever reason you get trapped outside you could very easily die in short time, well, it brings people together. We, holding hands in the frozen tundra, look down at all the other cities that don’t experience the very specific hell of running outside in -35 C to start your car because it needs to run idly for 45 minutes if the 17 inches of ice that accumulated on there over night is going to melt and scoff.

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Anyhoo, with all that said. Fuck this. Fuck this weather. Oh my god. Jesus fucking Christ. I hate this. I hate this so fucking much. Look at this bullshit!

It’s not even a nice deep freeze where, like, you get the blanket of snow and everything is just pristine but cold as fuck or a complete whiteout which has its own charm—it’s more like if Mother Nature was on an all-liquid diet for a little while and took a big, nasty slushy shit on Canada’s biggest city while also busting ass like a jet engine. And this ain't one of those normal shits, this is one of those shits where your legs go numb and you run out of things to read because you’ve been on the toilet for so long your circulation got cut off and your phone died.

I know that there is a whole tradition around people complaining about how much Canadian spring sucks (it always does) and then people complaining about the complainers—but still, fuck it. It is April, we’re not supposed to be completely covered in ice and have buses sliding down hills like Bambi taking her first steps. All this is to say: this weekend fucking sucked and while I still don’t respect Toronto, I do get their complaints about ice storms now.

I shouldn’t be too worried though, this is Toronto after all and if things get too bad they’ll just call in the military.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.