Canadians are seen to be phlegmatic, unflappable, stoic about the weather that Mother Nature throws so casually at us. She's casual about it, and so are we, generally. We know what to expect; both the anticipated and the unexpected. After all, we live in a geographically Northern climate. When winter arrives, as it does without fail, it heralds its presence by exposing us year after year to sleet, blizzards, freezing rain, ice fog, snow events and beautiful scenery.

Winter this year arrived in November, and it did so with a vengeance. Of course it hasn't been only Canada that has been gifted with Nature's grumbling ill humour. The Middle East for example, received a snowfall bonus that turned into miserable flooding. On the one hand, children rejoiced, on the other their parents struggled to contain the damage that ensued, with the exception of low-water reservoirs being topped up. And Syrian refugees' misery was compounded.

November to December, the outgoing months of 2013, were replete with icy temperatures and plenty of snowfalls, altering the landscape at an earlier than usual time. Sliding into 2014, more of the same with crippling ice storms bringing down power and leaving hundreds of thousands of people across Canada and the United States with the misery of coping sans heat, electricity and water at a time of year usually given over to good humour and celebration.

Here in the Ottawa Valley and beyond, burst municipal watermains led to boil-water advisories. Atop the mountains of snow we've gathered about us, more in increments that all together make for a considerable snow load on the landscape. This evening, we're warned, freezing rain will once again make its entry following a somewhat lethargic snowfall. But for at least one day the temperature has moderated, allowing us to venture out for an hour's ramble in our wooded and very snowy ravine today, with a high of minus-4-degrees Celsius.

Problems erupt with carbon monoxide warnings from municipal and provincial authorities, on the backs of people attempting to provide some life-affirming warmth into their ice-box-transformed homes using heaters not meant for indoor use, and people die. There have been fires this winter like any other, that have left people destitute, without their belongings, and the comfort of home; a more desolating experience hard to find in an already-difficult winter season.

Unlike Syria, however, there are no armed militias shooting at anyone. And, unlike Syria, there are charitable organizations geared to provide a little bit of human warmth to those in need, with no problem getting it to the people who so badly need it. The homeless, a blight on society's values and capabilities, are being fed and housed if and when they will accept it.

And we fortunate ones simply keep shovelling, and stay off the highways when it can be avoided, not wishing to become a statistic.