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Cold and winter have been used to inspire other forms of depressing poetry. It has been unrepentant about the general dreadfulness of Canadian winters. Throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s writers produced works reading like horror stories of a barren, cold wasteland.

In 1946, Patrick Anderson wrote a poem about Canada, which he concluded by stating that the country was a nation that had untapped potential — despite the cold. In his concluding line in “Poem on Canada,” he makes reference to Canada’s unique climate, calling it “A Cold Kingdom.”

America’s attic, an empty room

a something possible, a chance, a dance

that is not danced. A cold kingdom.

Conversely, the cold and winter has also been used in poetry as a punchline. In 1971, poet Alden Nowlan, may have been ahead of his time, in combining poetic prose with a Canadian climate jab. He created a poem suggesting that the winter of Canada had unparalleled danger, simply because it is a Canadian winter.

Innocently titled “Canadian January Night,” Nowlan’s poem reads: