O Tanenbaum

The old German christmas carol O CHRISTMAS TREE that we sang in our school concerts has the opening line:
"O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree...how lovely are your branches."  With just a couple of weeks until the "big guy" arrives, most of us are putting the finishing touches on the interior decorating...and that includes the tree. 

While fresh or frozen may be a decision for the contents of your oven on the special day, with our tree, the question that many make is REAL or ARTIFICIAL. Both have merit. Convenience, safety, tradition, smell, cost or just to have "something different" this year...there are reasons why we do...what we do.

The Christmas Tree lots are loaded and ready

What got me thinking about this happened during my drive into work last weekend and a recent television guest interview. As I turned the corner at Vine & Scott, I couldn't help but notice the newly erected sign, hand painted, announcing "Christmas Trees". It's not a new sign...it's seen a few years...like the many announcing newly created christmas tree lots that have recently sprung to life. While those lots may be fewer in number, they hold a special place and maintain a tradition. For years, we got our tree from the St. David's Lions Club and now we, like most, have switched to artificial.

Our childhood memories are probably quite different from those same childhood moments as viewed through our parents' eyes. Over the years, there were different methods used to obtain "the tree". As youngsters, we've been out to the tree farm to cut that "perfect" fresh one, but while growing up on Queenston Street, we had convenience. We simply went across the street to Westminster United Church and in a corner of their "field"...just off the gravel parking lot at the back of the church hall...the men's group had arranged your choice...propped, staked, or piled...long or short,..tall or wide. A small house trailer provided temporary refuge for those working outside.

As the succession of cars filed out, illumination from the strings of christmas lights overhead, and the snow crunching underfoot...a magic occurred. We would go from tree to tree, looking for that perfect specimen...eyeing it from every angle trying to determine how it might appear once loaded with our lights and decorations...the excitement of christmas became more real. "Over here...look a this one...no, that other one looked better...now where was it?"

With the ultimate decision made, once home, we would stand it in a bucket of water. We had lopped off the bottom inch of the trunk. As we grew older we got to use the saw...hoping that this year's version would not provide that immense pile of needles underneath until January 6th would arrive and the tree would become a memory once again.

In Niagara, we take our trees for granted...less so now that the ash beetle has devastated our local woodlots...but the fir trees in our yards and on our landscapes looks so beautiful after a new fallen snow. Many times they become that backdrop for that perfect christmas card.

2008 the Reception counter in Winnipeg for my first flight to Rankin Inlet stilll decorated for Christmas

The singing of "sleigh bells ringing" and the images of snowscapes are some of the traditions of Christmas in Canada, especially Niagara...but an interview this week gave me pause to consider how others around the world celebrate in their various regions. A fella from Australia was interviewed and was talking about our traditions and comparing the celebrations in Australia during December when their season is summer!!! It's tough to sing the traditional carols, imagining snow and ice when you're sitting on the beach by the ocean putting "another shrimp on the Bar-b" and your weather is six months out of sync.

That would be tough enough...but now consider those in the arctic regions of Canada. Having travelled to Rankin Inlet twice now I have experienced the north in the "dead of winter". The decorations strung across the Calm Air sign behind their reception desk in Winnipeg airport, the first time, gave me some indication of what might lie ahead...the experience, of course, was different.  

Loading the passengers into the Calm Aircraft in 2008 at winnipeg for the flight north to Rankin Inlet

Former visitor, still remembered in honured recognition,
the waiting room in Churchill Airport. january 2008.

My first landing out of Winnipeg that day was in Churchill, Manitoba. The home of famous polar bear tours. The daylight was starting to fade and on approach I could see very few trees. As we exited the aircraft so it could be refuelled, the darkness had surrounded us for our next leg to Arviat. From the reflections of the blinking red lights on the underbelly against the clouds you could see driving snow through the windows. It was just part of this new "experience".

Once safely on the ground, there was a blast of wind and driving snow as the door opened in Arviat, and the flight attendant deployed the steps from the aircraft to the waiting ground crew. I had a ring side seat since I was on a single just inches from that doorway. People got off and more passengers boarded with the port engine shutdown to reduce potential injury. The starboard engine continuing to roar. Soon, the steps were retracted inwards, the door closed, the left engine re-started and in spite of the blowing snow we were off....next stop Rankin Inlet.

When daylight came the next morning at 9:50, I had been at the health centre for almost two hours and I remember looking out the front door as the sun rose above the horizon and an odd orange violet hue painted the frozen bay before my eyes...yet something was bothering

One of the first travellers viewed as the sun rose in 2008

me...strangely and odd, something was missing. It was not until later that day that I finally realized what it was. Through the window, I had seen the snow and ice on the ground and had seen the wind blowing it around. I saw buildings, the odd vehicle or snow machine...but there were no trees....no trees at all.

There's always a story..no matter what the climate. 

Later, during my stay in January 2008, I asked one of my co-workers, a local Inuit who had gone "away" for school, if it ever bothered him that there were no trees here. He replied with the logic of the north "no bear can hide behind no tree". I returned from that locum at the end of January, after we had endured the longest blizzard ever recorded in Canada. We boarded the First Air 737 into Thompson, Manitoba in daylight as the days, by then, had grown longer. Before touching down, on approach, I could once again see trees. I knew I was one step closer to "getting home".

For us "southerners" trees come up in conversation all the time...probably because we are use to them (and we miss seeing them). Last visit, while talking amongst other health care workers I asked what was the stangest story you've ever heard. One person replied that they had asked someone in their late fifties, "How old were you, when you saw your first tree?"...the respondant had thought about it for a few moments, then replied that their "first sighting" had occurred when they were in their late thirties.

Just another example of you never know...what you'll hear or what you'll see in Canada's north. Stay tuned there's more adventure ahead.