As North Americans we're almost notorious for our lavish use of energy in our daily lives. During the summer months all business enterprises -- manufacturing, office towers, shopping centers and homes use air conditioning to moderate indoor space for 'comfort'. It certainly does help to make people more productive. On farms and other agricultural sites it's quite another story/

And in Canada in particular, a geography that knows very well what weather extremes are like and how they impact on our lives, with severe winter weather conditions and the other half of the year summer weather that can rival anywhere else on Earth where tropical-atmospheric conditions of heat and humidity are high, we are challenged as well.

It's interesting that in Europe air conditioning is not common in homes as it is in North America. Yet, particularly in the last decade or so Europe has been treated to intense weather systems bringing uncommon heat waves to the continent and people suffer the effects of huge discomfort, impacting on their health, causing death to the very young, the elderly and infirm.

Canada's geographic place in the world is huge, second only to that of Russia. With a growing population of only 27 million people, much of the country is not densely inhabited as is the case throughout Europe. And unlike Europe with its dense population base living in apartments, in Canada most people live in their own single-family homes. Perhaps because it is that just as we have so much geographic space, we also have a tendency to prefer our houses to be large.

Which equates with more energy use; heating in the winter, cooling in the summer, so we really are energy hogs. We have a central cooling system that had been installed in our own house by the builder and we use air conditioning, being mindful not to cool our living space to an extent that is obviously overly-wasteful. At night on hot nights we fling open our upstairs windows and switch on floor fans. During the day we close shutters and draperies to keep the heat of the sun at bay.

And we use early morning hours in the summer heat to get our fill of outdoor activity, aside from working in the garden. So we're off before breakfast with our two little dogs, in no particular rush, prepared to spend quality time before the day heats up too critically and hiking through the forest trails becomes an over-heated slog. That leisure enables us to look about us and appreciate everything we see that is natural and unspoiled. To breathe well-scrubbed air. To exercise our limbs as well as our lungs.

To feel free and unhampered. To let our thoughts go where they will. To engage in unhurried and thoughtful conversation with one another. To watch Jackie and Jillie disport themselves with puppy enthusiasm in a setting that is as natural to them as it has become for us. And then the 'icing on the cake' on our return back home after completing our forest circuit in the ravine, to wander briefly through the garden, happy to be greeted by colourful plants basking in sunlight so bright it hurts our eyes.