Posts
Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason came all the way to Whitehorse to take in the 2007 Canada Winter Games. Despite being on the scene, however, he still managed to disseminate disinformation about our fair city.
The City of Whitehorse has even introduced climate-change-friendly bylaws.
For instance, you can be fined for idling your car unnecessarily. Who would be crazy enough to turn their car off at a red light this time of year?
That is utter nonsense. The city has no such by-laws and, even if it did, waiting for a red light is beside the point.
A complete list of municipal by-laws is posted at the website of the City of Whitehorse. Take a gander, Mr Mason: there's nothing about limiting vehicle idling.
Someone could have phoned the by-law enforcement office for corroboration, but I guess he left his fact checkers back in Toronto. Did someone play a little joke on the Globe and Mail reporter? And then he was taken in by his own romantic notions of environmentally aware Northerners? He wouldn't be the first.
There was an attempt to enact such an ordinance, but it went nowhere. An environmental activist somehow got elected to City Council about five years ago. She proposed an anti-idling by-law and got no support from the mayor or the other five council members. In fact, as I recall, some members had a few chuckles over it. (That Council member soon moved out of town and did not run for re-election.)
Undaunted, a small group of local eco-wackos took it upon themselves to oppress alert drivers who left their vehicles parked and running for more than a few minutes. But that didn’t last long because widespread idling occurs only when the thermometer drops below -20 Celsius or so, and the self-appointed idling police didn't like standing around outside in the cold for hours staring intently at their stopwatches.
In the North, vehicle idling has nothing to do with waiting at a red light. As the temperature falls past -20, more and more drivers leave their vehicles running when they park anywhere away from a plug-in. Last weekend, for example, the mercury dropped below -30. The parking stalls along Main Street and the parking lots at Wal-Mart and Superstore were full of vehicles left idling while drivers and passengers went shopping. This is common and accepted practice in the North (as long as one carries a duplicate set of car keys).
And then there's this.
Locals say the recent blast of frigid temperatures is not representative of the weather the area's been getting. In fact, Woody, my taxi driver, says the past three years in Whitehorse have been the warmest he can recall.
Couple of problems there. First off, the temperature statistics prove Woody is mistaken.
What's more, I heard that same story from an old-timer less than two months after I arrived here in late October 1988. The temperature dipped to -25, and a long-time resident assured me it was nothing. He said, "It used to get really cold here back in the 1970s, but it doesn't anymore."
He was proved wrong in no time. For six solid weeks during January and February, 1989, the temperature did not rise above -35. For three of those weeks, it didn’t get above -40. (And that’s ignoring wind-chill factors.)
Gary Mason complains about a few days with highs of -25 and lows of -35. Take my word for it: That's nothin'. It used to get really cold in Whitehorse back in the late 1980s, but it doesn’t anymore. If you missed the winter of '89, you don't know what cold is.
Click here for the latest Whitehorse weather forecast.
Previous related post:
