First the rains came to Vancouver. They came and came and it poured and poured until the dirt broke loose and slid into our reservoirs and dirtied the water, so the officials told us to boil the tap water before we drank it and there was panic in the streets. People fought in stores for clean, bottled water. Well, some people did, anyway; the rest of us simply boiled what the taps gave us, ran it through a jug purifier in the fridge and looked cockeyed at everyone else who was yelling “THE SKY IS FALLING” (which, to be certain, it was, but it was more dampening and depressing than apolcalyptic).

Then, after a week and a half of boiling our slightly cloudy runoff (no worse than what you’d get from a creek, really) the sky fell again. White this time, and Vancouver, if not shut down exactly, certainly slowed down (like molasses in November). Over a foot fell within a couple of days–the worst in easy memory since 1998, and certainly the worst in several years. Reaction on the internet was swift.

“Haha, Vancouver! Finally! Now you get what you deserve!”

Meaning, I suppose, that because we are part of a temperate rainforest and consequently have much milder temperatures from the rest of Canada, we are feeble and have no idea how to comport ourselves in a colder winter setting; we are unused to what they receive elsewhere in the Great White North (as if residents anywhere else in Canada would happily take on our five to six months of constant rain–we’ve earned the right to a little credit on that front). But that’s true to a degree–of course Vancouverites don’t know how to drive in a foot of snow; the last time we saw a foot of snow was nearly a decade ago. Winter tires? What would we need those for? The day and a half of light snow coverage we usually get once a year? Yeah, maybe we are ill-prepared in that regard, but ask people in California where they keep their winter equipment and you’d probably get the same incredulous look a Vancouverite would shoot you.

To be honest, though, after walking home today, I think we did deserve this. The trip took me down a forested path along an embankment and creek–about six blocks of heavily gladed scenery. The snow had stopped; to the east the sun had finally started to come out and was lighting the mountains in pink. And the crisp stillness that hung in the air occurs so infequently in the city I could only stand and wonder at it.

Silence.

Total, absolute, insulated silence, save for the crackling of the snow and the periodic rustle of a snowfall deposit tumbling from one of its perches. And the woods, which normally would be a lattice of bare (and wet) branches, a repository of sticks waiting for spring, was instead a layered cobweb of white, stretching back tree by tree as far as you could see.

Vancouver in the summer in breathtaking in its beauty–the greens of the foliage and rich blue of the seas and sky–but this is a majesty that doesn’t come along often. Once a decade maybe. And if the rest of Canada gets to see this every year (I’m certain most of it does), then I’m envious, because winter in all her glory is something we rarely experience, and a glimpse of her perfect grace is something we’re long overdue in deserving to see.

(Incidentally, shortly after I got home I discovered they lifted the water boil advisory. One crisis per customer, apparently. )