The Steemit platform has brought a world of people together to share about our days and their experiences in the worlds that we live in everyday. Today my post, and a few to come, will focus on "Small town Rural Canada life with a Family" throughout the 4 seasons.
I live in what is considered a small town in Ontario, Canada. I am about a 2 hour drive to any large city. The winters can be long, harsh and bitterly cold. This post will emphasize how we hardy rural Canadian folk go about a typical winter season, and what we do for fun. When snow and ice are all around for about 4 and a half months, we get creative and embrace living with it, and making fun with it. The town I live is surrounded by some of the largest bush area of the province. We have a National Park, at our doorstep. So a big activity for many families is to go hit the trails Xcountry Skiing or otherwise known as Nordic Skiing. This is my daughter ready to hit the trails.
Living in a small town, you have a larger population of what we call "Red Necks". They enjoy the bush, hunting, fishing, working on their snowmachines and ATV's etc. Fishing is really popular, summer or winter. Here is my friend out checking her hole ice fishing.
When we have a huge snowfall that does happen often, we must wait for the trails to be groomed to Xcountry ski so we improvise and get the snowshoes out and go for a hike on the trails. This is my daughter finding her feet learning to snowshoe.
Because Canada is all about "HOCKEY" small towns all across the country, enjoy playing "SHINY" which is a term for pick up hockey, where everyone throws in a stick and 2 people pick random sticks from the pile to create 2 teams. Sometimes you have 10 per team come out.
After any good snow fall it is a tradition for most kids to get out and build the typical "Snowman"
And of course after any snowfall, any day of the week, the local largest hill, called the sliding hill, is full of families young and old, out with their sleds, crazy carpets and sometimes just a waxed cardboard box, sliding down the hill. At winter carnival time, the firefighters come with their hose and spray the hill the night before just to make it more slippery, then the next day host a sliding party serving free hot dogs and hot chocolate.
Everyone in our small knows someone who has a "Hottub" right in their backyard. It is another popular luxury to do in the snow, after a long snowmobile trek that day, or just a hike in the woods.
Of course there is always a chore of removing the snow from the driveway, before hopefully that "Rotten" snowplow passes and puts a mountain of snow at the end of your lane. Then the work is twice as hard to complete.
Usually every smaller community will have or be withing a 15 minute drive to some kind of ski hill, large enough to snowboard on with some sort of ski life. We have a small hill, which runs a ski race at carnival time each year and it's called the "Worlds Shortest Downhill".
So what do we do when it is bone chilling and too dangerous to go and play outside. We embrace the local community center where we play games and such. This is the air hockey table.
Once a year the local grocer brings in lobster, usually during the winter, and we go buy a few as treats, but before we do, to pass the time we hold "Lobster Races" down the hall from the kitchen to the dining area. Nothing like a good race to beat the winter blues.
Then there is always the gym, where you can go and ride your bike, which many do.
Many kids pass the time over the long winter participating in school or organized sport in our town at typically the local High school gym. This is my daughter playing Volleyball.
Another fun activity that many families do, is to go to the local bowling alley to pass the time. It seems that Bowling has become a dying activity.
When all else fails, and the centers are closed, and it's too cold to go and play outside, there is always the ever popular Bowl of popcorn, the hit list on the satelite, and a good game of Monopoly. Which our family plays at least 2 times a month.
Did you notice something, unusual about all my pictures in this post. Did you notice that not one picture included Technology, an IPad, a cell phone, a computer, a TV. It's what small town families do. Hope you enjoyed living a season of Winter in Rural Small town Canada with me.
Happy "Small Town Trails" my Friends.
