The cold never bothered us anyway - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson
Stockholm Syndrome, traditionally used to describe a psychological phenomenon in which hostages develop an emotional bond with their captors, has found fresh expression in our relationship with winter. What began as a seasonal imposition, something to be endured, tolerated, eventually escaped, has, by sheer force of repetition, become something like devotion. Somewhere between the fourth freezing rain warning and the spring equinox being quietly ignored, we stopped resisting and began to admire its resolve. What once felt like confinement now feels like discipline. We look at the endless grey horizon and see it as a boundary we have learned to accept, like the walls of a monastery: imposing, but ultimately for our own good.
Tulip beds lie quietly beneath layers of salt and sediment, their fate sealed under an icy embargo. The first day of spring arrived without ceremony, like a train that never pulled into the station, its passengers already too disillusioned to care. A distant sun hangs over frozen fields with all the warmth of a bureaucrat signing off on a requisition form; efficient, emotionless and a little too distant for comfort.
The Chaff now officially advocates for a year-round winter. Spring is ornamental - nice to look at, but ultimately unnecessary. Summer is unruly - wild, sweaty, uncontained. Fall, a soft lead-up to the inevitable return of snow. But winter - winter is governance. It imposes a rhythm. It slows people down. It keeps the noise in check. No one is loud in a whiteout. No one hurries on ice. The world shrinks, forcing us into introspection and, dare we say, solidarity. It’s the one season that manages to unify, if only through its relentless persistence. Time doesn’t fly in winter; it accumulates, one snowflake at a time, until the very act of living feels like a slow, deliberate process.
We propose Second February, to follow the first. January, meanwhile, may be extended indefinitely, as a month we shall devote to deep reflection, hot beverages and the fine art of ice sculpture. Snowplows will become the new parades, gliding down streets with the solemnity of state visits. Firepits will be rebranded as permanent civic infrastructure, places for gathering and reflection, the only true warmth in an otherwise stark landscape.
Agriculture will adapt. Ice lettuce. Permafrost beets. Controlled burns will take place only when absolutely necessary and all harvests will be conducted by moonlight under a canopy of stars. Fields will be plowed with snowblowers, not tractors. Local farmers’ markets will be moved indoors, naturally, but only to showcase the hardy, winter-adapted vegetables that thrive in frost. School calendars will reflect the seasonal doctrine: fewer breaks, more mittens. Physical education will prioritize shovelling form, the art of lifting and tossing snow efficiently becoming the new standard of fitness. Children will be taught to read snow patterns like old sailors read the sea. “It’s slush near the curb,” a child will say gravely, “but dry pack further out. It’ll hold until Thursday.”
Culture will follow. Fall fairs will be replaced by frost fairs. These will be gatherings of subtle grandeur, with ice sculpting contests, sled races and perhaps an occasional low-key poetry reading by the fire. The summer concert season will be reformatted as the Deep Freeze Requiem Series, featuring music best heard through wind and snow. Theatres will begin scheduling winter-specific programming: plays with no endings, films with no arc, novels that begin and end in the same snowed-in room. These will be stories of endurance, of human resilience under the weight of an unyielding sky. The idea of “closure” will be abandoned altogether.
Language will evolve. Words like “bloom” and “heatwave” will enter folklore, strange and mythical, like creatures of the past. The phrase “mild day” will be reserved for diplomatic insult, a phrase that implies weakness in the face of winter’s might. Childhood stories will open with lines like, “Once, long ago, the trees had leaves,” and end with a knowing silence. The seasons will no longer be something to look forward to; they will be an unspoken contract with nature that we will honour, one snowstorm at a
time.
Should the melt ever come, we will greet it not with joy, but with formality. We will acknowledge it as a visiting diplomat, a guest whose manners have been questioned, whose arrival will be scrutinized. If the thaw dares to come, it will be expected to behave in the most restrained manner, with no fanfare, no bold proclamations of warmth. It will be a temporary reprieve, one that we will allow only with careful consideration. We’ve made our peace with winter. More than that, we’ve made plans. And these plans, like the snow, will be unwavering.
We are not cold. We are called.