We've officially turned the calendar from late fall into winter. Although, truth to tell, it's felt sporadically like winter, for quite a long while; just seems that way.

Ottawa is one of the world's coldest, snowiest capitals, so the legend goes, second only to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. When you're a resident of Canada, living in Ottawa, in our northern climate, accustomed as we are to the changing of the seasons, the very thought of Ulan Bator, Mongolia, brings shivers of imagined inclement weather immediately to mind.

Ottawa has its share of inclement weather and dangerous conditions, from ice fogs to freezing rain pelting the environment. Howling winds and extreme snowfalls, we get them all. And although we claim to be tough and prepared to deal with all that nature brings our way, we need all the strength of mind we can muster to get through a long, cold winter. Which is one very good reason why living with the environment and the season helps, to get out there with a recreational frame of mind and let your eyes absorb the beauty that is revealed when a forest is freshly covered with snow. To challenge the weather, and the terrain with snowshoes, skis, skates, sleds, and encourage children to make the most of those opportunities. A positive frame of mind helps, considerably.

Canada's far north, the Yukon territory, for example, with its great geological massifs, a mountain range in huge sweeps of cold, human-uninhabited territory, with its massive glaciers that carry on into equally weather-forbidding Alaska, can challenge the peaks of the Himalaya for miserable, stormy, icy and snowy weather.

Yesterday's ravine walk was in weather that was, to say the least, 'different' for this time of year, where traditionally we've had accumulated a considerable snowpack to remain for the duration of the winter by now, prepared to welcome the Christmas celebrations in snowy-style as a backdrop to the festivities, the colour and sparkle of ubiquitously-hung decorations. It was mild enough for the precipitation that fell, to come down as freezing rain.

Later in the day the freezing rain, after it had turned area highways to sheer sheets of ice, turned once again - to pouring, ordinary rain. And during the cooler night-time temperature drop, that turned into thicker sheets of ice, to welcome dawn and workplace-directed traffic on its way - slowly, carefully, to minimize the hazards inherent in driving in those conditions.

But sunny, as well; partially blue skies presenting, in the wake of yesterday's aluminum-foil top-of-the-world.