We love the sun, oh how we love the presence of the sun. Living here it just is not possible to imagine how people who are in the Nordic countries, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and others manage their days for months on end without the friendly face of the sun brightening and warming their environment and their outlook on winter.

Canada is a northern country, a winter country, and we are beyond fortunate to also have the natural privilege of ample winter sun. Granted, there are many days that are overcast, the sun hidden behind clouds prepared frequently to release their burden of frozen water either as freezing rain, or far more often, an abundance of snow. Abundance, because it is true that we receive quite a bit of snow.

Not necessarily in the southernmost parts of the country, but certainly to the east and the west and the north. The nation's capital receives the seventh-most snow and experiences the seventh-most icy winter conditions of any country of the world, just behind Estonia, Iceland, Finland, Russia, Kazakhstan, and the world's coldest and iciest, Mongolia.

But we get sun, lots of it, and we love it. It lifts our mood, it brightens our day and beautifies the landscape, it warms us and helps to penetrate the layers of snow that accumulate over the winter season, until spring arrives.

Yesterday was one of those bright, sunny days. We could feel the sun caressing us as we walked up the street to our nearby forest. We could see the sun streaming down through the canopy onto the snowpack. We could see, looking up and ahead in the distance how the sun crowns the tops of trees in a blaze of brightness.

I am personally mesmerized by the vision of the setting sun in the winter, with its streaks of light illuminating the landscape, but most particularly, seeing that ball of luminous fire through the masts of the forest trees. It is an exciting spectacle, with a fierce beauty beyond compare.