The snow that enwraps northern Nova Scotia reflects sky colours, infusing the landscape with shades of blue in shadows and dim light. In the tropics of Australia, milky blue and periwinkle cumulus clouds towered above the North Queensland coast in the Wet. Here, I’ve noticed those same same shades bleeding onto the white of snow-pillowed creekbeds and heralding the rise of a full moon at dusk.

Since our return from the heat and humidity of tropical Australia, Vilis and I have revelled in the snow surrounding our home, which at last estimate was about four feet or a metre and a quarter deep. Such an abundance of the white stuff presents an impediment to movement for our local white-tailed deer and necessitates frequent clearing of our access road and mailbox, but it also offers the enticement of play in and with a form of precipitation which, when damp and sticky, lends itself to construction.

When my sons Dainis and Janis were toddlers and youngsters, we built snow bunnies with long ears, plump tummies, and rounded tails. Now they are tall young men home from university for a few days, but the lure of snow still enthralls them. This afternoon, the two of them spent hours shovelling, rolling, packing, and sculpting snow, their jean legs wet from kneeling, their breaths panting from their mouths, their strong arms bare in the winter light. They stacked uneven spheres of rolled snow and filled gaps with handfuls of the compacting frozen ‘cement.’

Next, they sliced away at the sides of their creation, forming straight, towering walls. Dainis mounted an extension ladder to carve the peak of the snow mass into a neat point. Even then they worked/played on, digging down to ground level to expose the full height of their creation, an obelisk. Weary of shovelling, Dainis started the tractor and employed the snowblower attachment to make quick work of the remaining snow blocking the base.

Finally, voila! A snowbelisk of excellent dimensions and elegant simplicity. The tropics of Australia were alive with exotic beauty and diverse life, but nothing there equated with snow.