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The 40 Below Anthology: Sharing Stories of Edmonton Winters and my 1975 Snowman Captured on Film

 

My Snow Man March 8, 1975 in Edmonton, AB
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My Snow Man March 7, 1975 in Edmonton, AB

 

My copy of 40 Below: Edmonton’s Winter Anthology arrived this week.  I was excited to see my name in the table of contents and look forward to reading many accounts of Edmonton winters.  I took this photo of a snow man(as I referred to him) with my mother’s Brownie camera in 1975 when I was 8 years old.  I don’t remember the actual making of this snow man, but I remember the photo.  I built with snow sticky enough to mold the form, the kind you can roll a snowball on the ground into a a larger and larger sphere. I wonder what the buttons and eyes are made of.  The one arm looks suspiciously like a kitchen utensil, and the perhaps a doll’s toque on top, with a pompom.  His expression is stoic(perhaps he predicted his fate).   He stands near my favorite weeping birch tree with the white bark that I could peel off in scrolls and imagine writing novels on.

Snow Man Diary
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Snow Man Diary

My third grade teacher had us write a journal, and I discovered this entry when going through my old papers in the attic.  Someone had knocked down my snow man.  I don’t remember that either.  I was comforting myself with the photo I had taken of it, and the possibility of rebuilding.  My teacher was concerned whether it would be warm enough.  On a whim, I looked up the weather for that date on the Government Canada climate website, and March 8th was about 14 degrees Fahrenheit.  March 7th was just at freezing and it snowed.   My teacher asked if I used water in my craft of snow man making, and I had an unequivocal no.  Perhaps my Texan parents didn’t have the technique to pass on to me.  I don’t know if I rebuilt, but looking at the data, I would say no.

Check out the 40 Below book trailer, with its own theme song.

 

 Through a Brownie Camera

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