Читать книгу Let It Snow. Keeping Canada's Winter Sports Alive онлайн

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Trees and ice on the lake exploded in the cold with a sound like gunfire, the airbrakes of streetcars froze, and natural gas lines were clogged in a solid mass that had to be continually pumped. One simply bundled up against its worst sting and school went on despite the need to wear one’s outdoor clothing in rooms often no more than 18°C.

But the ice sailing in Toronto harbour was brilliant, and the early challenges of artificial ice were forgotten for at least one winter.

If he hadn’t moved west by this time Fred Grant might have joined the festivities, as he recalled his own youth in Barrie:

There used to be some pretty fine sport, too, in ice-boating on the bay, in which Levi Carley and Ike Boon were the most prominent and had the fastest and largest boats. It was fun enough when you were out skating to jump on and have a ride, but far better to hang onto the frame and slide on your skates, and when it came to the boat making a sharp turn, why “crack-the-whip” wasn’t in it with the flip you’d get, and it was entirely your own affair whether you slid away on your skates or on the back of your neck.