Another January day, another roller-coaster ride on the weather front here in the nation's capital. It is, after all, winter. And while Australians are roasting in an unusually hot weather pattern even for their summer guaranteed to be extremely warm in their Micronesian region of the world we here in the North are oppositionally-weather impacted-and-challenged. They take dips into the ocean and we shelter in our heated homes.

Not that we don't venture out-of-doors, necessarily. Canadians are great believers in making the most of their climate, even in its most inclement conditions. What may be weather-challenging to some represents opportunity to others. Those countless Canadians who take to the ski hills, who teach their children the joys of tobogganing on a newly-snowed hill, who love to skate on the picturesque, groomed Rideau Canal, billing itself in winter as the longest skating rink in the world, take full advantage of winter in Ottawa.

And then, there's snowshoeing. We've done it all in our time. Snowshoeing, however, was our favourite winter occupation and there's nothing quite like facing a deep, undisturbed layer of snow in the fabulous winter wilderness of Gatineau Park to break trail and listen to chickadees taking refuge on windy winter days in snow-dappled trees that resemble some giant artistic hand portraying the perfect winter scene, coming across a startled buck on a hilltop, and gliding swiftly down a hillside plush with new snow.

Not to mention snowshoeing across a frozen winter lake, steeped in a coverlet of snow in that fabulous nature preserve, hearing the ice settling and cracking under one's webbed snowshoes, while viewing the flat expanse ahead delineating the lake, and appreciating the perimeter crowded with trees, noting in the process the browse-line where deer are wont to nibble for sustenance as far as they can reach up the needled branches of conifers.

Now, we 'make do' with what is serendipitously close at hand for us. While it took us only a half-hour drive from our home to access the Gatineau Hills, it takes us far less to walk the few metres from the house to the entrance of the forested ravine that divides a good portion of the community we now live in.

A relatively modest proportion of that community recognizes and values the presence of that forest as a natural gift allowing us the freedom and privilege of accessing a natural surrounding complete with its forest denizens, to advantage ourselves in its generous acreage of forest, viewing its startling beauty in all seasons of the year, breathing its pure, scrubbed air, admiring the wildflowers that crop up from spring to fall and enjoying striding along the forest trails after our companion pets.

In the very depth of winter's crushing cold we can moderate our times of exposure to reflect the atmospheric conditions as appropriate while not denying ourselves the pleasures inherent in trekking those trails, taking note of daily subtle changes in the landscape that means so much to our well-being and quality of life.