Our son in Toronto tells us its not anyone's idea of fun trying to get around Toronto in the wake of the icestorm they've recently experienced. Even wearing icers over boots doesn't guarantee smooth sailing, as it were. And they're now headed to Halifax to spend the holiday week with his wife's family close to Truro. Leaving Toronto now that the storm has passed, though not its effects, and heading out to Nova Scotia where the storm has also gravitated to, so they'll be coping doubly with the same weather system.

Power has been lost to hundreds of thousands of people in southern Ontario; 300,000 in Toronto alone, not very pleasant to say the least, at this time of year. No lighting during the shortest daylight hours of the year, and no heating during the time of year when it's most needed, and water systems in peril as well. Recalling what we went through in the winter of 1998 with the great ice storm that hit a huge geographic area, including ours with a week of incessant freezing rain that left a thick coating of ice over everything confronted us.

Peoples' water pipes were freezing, and some burst, creating additional problems for home owners during that dreadful time when the city here, as municipalities did elsewhere in Quebec, New York and even New Hampshire, opened up warming centres where those afflicted with power shutdowns as a result of power lines crashing down under the weight of the ice that gathered on them and fallen trees, felled resulting from ice buildup, were able to go for shelter.

Our younger son had been visiting with us from his home in Vancouver back then, and he urged me at that time to venture out toward the ravine just to see what was happening. We hadn't gone very far into the ravine, just the first few yards actually, when the incessant cracking sound of boughs breaking under the weight of the ice over a snow build-up was bringing down trees and tree limbs at an astonishing and dangerous rate. It had been difficult negotiating our way over the icy terrain and it didn't take much more to convince us to back off.

The ice covering every surface looked beautiful to be sure, but it also looked threatening with the knowledge that breaking a leg, driving into another vehicle on the road, or risking losing power in one's house drove people to excesses of caution, while others who were impacted by power breakdowns gathered to huddle for warmth in area community centers.

The spires of great old pines came down during that period, as did a large percentage of the birch trees in the ravine; one large bough of a huge willow peeled off and stayed that way, dangling, and it is how it remains to the present day, stubbornly resisting falling off, just hanging on despite the number of excessive-weather storms we've had since then.

We were surprised the following spring when we ventured to the White Mountain Range in New Hampshire to see the widespread damage the forests had sustained there, as well, where fallen trees in abundance locked us out of some of our mountain hikes, with no way to continue a hike we had commenced and having to turn back, disappointed at the aborted day's adventure.