Why Not "Indian Winter"?

Let's assume there could be a cold snap in the middle of Spring. After all, we have warm snaps in the middle of Fall, so why not? After some nice days =bang= it’s cold.

Indian Winter, we call it. No, let’s not blame our More Native Than Us population. How about “Wooly Mastodon Spring”? Every time I think of those beasts, I am reminded of nothing but frigid, deep snow winters. They came across the ice bridge from the frozen tundra of Russia, or something like that; who knows?

Ok, so it’s Wooly Mastodon Spring. We’re enjoying a very nice, slowly warming sunny period. All is fine with the world and we are putting away our winter duds. There is a God and (gender unknown, if there is a gender) is smiling down on us. Suddenly, we get two weeks of Wooly Mastodon Spring and the winter gear comes out again.

How could Mr., Ms., or Neuter God do this to us? A cruel twist of meteorological fate that crushes our hopes and makes us bundle up against the forces of nature. In the distance we see the giant tusked animal swaying along in the sudden snow blast, laughing as only the Mastodon can laugh.

That night, as we relax with mugs of hot chocolate, the tv weather forecast is something like this: “Ok, folks, we just got hit with an Alberta Clipper, a Yukon Yunker, a Vancouver Voomer and a Manitoba Momma all at once. Bundle up, because it’s gonna be with us for most of next week. Sports after this.”