It is March in Ireland, the winter is almost over, while here in Canada the best most people can say is “there’s only a few months to go”.
I’m fine with winter now, but my first one was a shocker. I had left Belfast in the bloody mid-1970s, certain that Canada would be everything that my dysfunctional Northern Ireland wasn’t. I didn’t know, however, that Canada was and still is, the world’s second coldest country. To make matters worse, I also landed in January, the coldest month of the year in Canada.
The cold compounded my sense of isolation in the small town in rural Ontario I found myself in where I had no friends, family, or Irish community, and there was no cafe, cinema or anything else to break the boredom. The internet hadn’t even been invented, so that was no help.
I spent my first weekend in a motel by the side of a highway close to the factory where I would start work that Monday. It was -20 degrees Celsius and my not-so-warm clothing kept me confined to my motel room.
I went to the cinema to see Small Things Like These. By the time I emerged I had concluded the film was crap
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Thoroughly jet lagged I lay awake at 3am, listening to the signature sound of the lonesome long whistle of a freight train rumbling along tracks a few frozen fields from the motel.
On Monday morning I tramped along the snow-covered side of the highway to the factory to begin my new job. I had no experience in quality assurance or the pharmaceutical industry and there was no training on offer for the work I was about to do. Those were the days.
One afternoon there was enough daylight for me to notice the solitary line of boot prints in the snow, heading towards the factory
At the best of times quality assurance isn’t a popular role and for this not-so-knowledgeable blow-in there were no best of times. Most employees, it seemed, felt that the job should have gone to someone local.
When I rejected raw material or quarantined products, production personnel responded with a torrent of expletives that were all new words to me.
At 5pm I walked back along the side of the highway in the semidarkness, to the motel. Confined to my room by the cold, I had no one to talk to, no one to share my feelings about this not-so-nice new life of mine.
Some relief came in mid-February.
When I left the factory at 5pm the sky was still bright, a sign that the winter might end after all. However, this welcome late-afternoon light would confront me with the reality of my new life.
One afternoon there was enough daylight for me to notice the solitary line of boot prints in the snow, heading towards the factory. At first I took no notice of them and I just kept walking. Then a thought crossed my mind that stopped me in my tracks – literally. Carefully I pivoted 180 degrees and delicately placed my left boot in the left boot print, and then the right boot in the right print. Voila! A perfect fit! It was a weird sort of Cinderella glass-slipper moment.
To stave off the loneliness, I bought a book on sketching and practised drawing little faces and the figure of a man playing a guitar
These boot prints were mine. I had made them that morning on my way to the factory. There had been no snowfall that day, as there usually was, to cover them up. They were, I felt, a telling metaphor for the loneliness of my new life.
There and then I felt like giving up, but I didn’t. I continued to the motel and later I jogged across the highway to the truck stop for a chicken dinner. The next day I got on with the new life that I’d pulled down around my ears.
To stave off the loneliness, I bought a book on sketching and practised drawing little faces and the figure of a man playing a guitar. I purchased all four volumes of Winston Churchill’s History of the second World War and started to read.
However, these pastimes would not have got me past the six-month mark without the friendship of two colleagues, francophone Quebecers. They opened up their homes to me. At Sunday dinners with their families I was so surprised to hear French spoken around the table.
Soon I was watching French TV, which I didn’t understand, but seemed much more fun than the English channels. On visits to Montreal, I felt at ease in the francophone ambience so when I was offered a job in the city, I accepted it.
As for the winter, I hardly notice it. I’m thoroughly winterised, perhaps more than some native-born Canadians. Bring it on, I say. The colder the better
Although Montreal was love at first sight, making a life (mostly in French) wasn’t easy. However, I hung on through the language laws and two separation referendums and made it work. Montreal is home and I’m happy here.
Many winters have passed since I left my boot prints in the snow by the side of a highway in a frozen middle of nowhere. Although I haven’t forgotten that moment, it has no emotional charge for me. It is simply a part of my past.
As for the winter, I hardly notice it. I’m thoroughly winterised, perhaps more than some native-born Canadians. Bring it on, I say. The colder the better.
Patrick McKenna moved to Canada in January 1975. He lives and works in Montreal
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