Kootenay Crust

By Ian Cobb

Day three and still no sign of land.

A constant rain falls sharply and bitingly through the canopy of conifers surrounding our home. The air holds a thick essence – one part rain, one part saturated soil turning into loon poop, and one part wood smoke.

I should be almost at Invermere by now; on my way to play in the Kinsmen Club of Windermere Valley’s annual Snow Golf Tournament. I should be listening to sonic metal (to smother the sound of rattling golf clubs and the 11 golf balls that slid out of my bag when I tossed it in the back of my car). Alas, climate change has forced the first cancellation of the tourney in its 14 years.

We’ve played on a polished cold ice, knee-deep crunchy snow, thin crusty snow, corn snow up to our bums and all sorts of amazing conditions during the run of the Snow Golf Tournament but we’ve never been rained out. Damn it.

A relentless barfing of rain has turned Lake Windermere’s surface into an ankle-deep slop of awaiting pneumonia for those who would foolishly splash their way over 18 shivering holes of scuba golf. So hats off to the Kinsmen for cancelling.

However, Mother Nature’s surrealistic foray into the unseasonable, likely a result of her catching Old Man Winter in bed with a couple of East Coast tarts, is taking away from the community-at-large as the Kinsmen do great work raising funds for important causes.

Another extremely important cause, the Family Fishing Derby for Kids With Cancer at Horseshoe Lake (Feb. 9) has been postponed because the constant rain has flooded the lake surface, making conditions too risky to proceed.

I am sure that some people are wagging fingers skyward and declaring the current conditions to be the result of global warming. It is the first week of February and large community events are planned around winter being winter. And yet, it is positively April like out there right now. Snow sports lovers cry into (insert your favourite mind altering beverage here), while golfers are polishing their clubs and whistling Scots shanties.

Except for about 80 or so golfers in the Columbia Valley. They’re slamming their clubs back into the recessed areas they store them during the winter and pondering about what to do with all the supplies gathered for the day’s merriment. To Larry, Mike, Bram, Bob or whoever we convinced to march across the ice with us this day, cheers and may the party be hearty still.

I am also quite sure there are some people, generally as smart as a car commercials, scoffing at the strange weather and declaring with Ezra Levant-like assurity that seven billion human beings addicted to the ceaseless burning of fossil fuels mixed together with the Earth’s day-to-day ‘geomorphing’ intemperance could have no bearing on this week’s spring-like rainaganza, even though we should be up to our bums in snow and bloody well golfing on Lake Windermere. (Yes, that was a very, very long sentence.) (And yes, very is the most the useless word in the English language.)

Anyway, the forecast for the next few days is more of the same. Watch your nearby waterways, don’t drive in loon poop, avoid avalanche paths, be mindful of falling rock and black ice and batten down the hatches.

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