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

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Hockey on frozen slough, east of Viking, Alberta, 1912.

Winter has now become more than a season. It is a window into the future. It is reflected on an almost daily basis in the glaciers and ice fields and snow-packed mountains and backyard rinks and even the permafrost in Arctic wilderness, and the penguins and polar bears that live in the dark and cold places of the world.

Climate change, once the topic of mild concern, and then intense debate, is now acknowledged to be an increasing threat to survival, or at least to our ability to live within reasonably tolerant levels of heat and frost.

How we deal with that challenge will define our place in the world for centuries, and along with that, a world in which winter is commonplace rather than a rare experience. Human willingness to confront this challenge is at least partly based on our ability to look back at what once so enflamed passions and created a distinct national identity.

It is easy to forget the glories of what once was, and instead take for granted as both inevitable and normal, our experience of the world today and into the future.