After a late start to winter in eastern Canada in 2014, the new year caught up with a vengeance, and it has been slopping into spring for people living in the Maritimes. My brother yesterday shovelled two and a half feet of snow out of his driveway, taking his time in spurts of shovel-and-rest, repeated four times before he and his wife were able to clear away the snowfall.

The Canadian Press / Andrew Vaughan

It may be unusually cold in Ontario, but we've had a deficit of snow this winter, while Canada's West coast is basking in warm spring weather, fruit trees long since bloomed, and the East Coast struggles to clear away the excess of snow it has received.

He has just started his sixth round of eight chemotherapy bouts, and he says his strength remains, but his endurance has diminished markedly. He's a robust, strong man of 65, still occasionally playing a game of squash and winning, still writing, still active in his avocations, newly retired as a biology professor at Dalhousie University.

He had planned on driving to Pelee Point in the spring, but that has to be extended into the summer months, so as not to interfere with his later rounds of chemotherapy. When they're all done, another evaluation of his condition will take place; and he will be advised what his near future will likely comprise.

He hasn't lost any weight, and is holding his own. He plans to stay over with us when he and his wife begin their journey to the furthermost southern point of Ontario jutting out over Lake Ontario, which is a famous flyway for migrating birds returning to this part of the country and beyond.