Looking at the temperatures, it's about as cold in Toronto as it is in Whitehorse (-21). Interestingly, while southern Canada is finding the cold hard to take, it feels rather balmy to me after the cold snap we had a couple of weeks ago. I guess it's all relative. Also, the wind plays a huge part in how cold it feels - luckily, our wind isn't too bad today. The temperature is supposed to drop back down into the minus 30s in a few days, though, so I'm not going to get too smug.
I think the coldest I've ever felt is not in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut or the Yukon, (where I know enough to dress for the cold) but in Ottawa (where I didn't). I was there several years ago in January, and I swear I have never felt so chilled or miserable. The second coldest I've ever been is in Toronto, on a day in February when I was trying to do some filming for a course I was taking at Ryerson. The camera kept freezing and I had to continually run inside to warm it up. I was in a total state and by the time I was done the last thing I cared about was that stupid project. I recall I got a C on the assignment -- the teacher said some of my scenes were 'inconsistent'. I think it was amazing that I captured any images at all!
One of my fondest memories of cold occurred during my first trip to Resolute Bay in the High Arctic in the early 80s. It was in the minus 50s and the sky was that brilliant pink colour that you only see in extreme temperatures (for the brief time there was any light in the sky at all at that time of year). A very sweet man with Transport Canada took me out on the tundra in some sort of land rover, and we sat there looking over the amazing moonlike landscape and ate smoked oysters and drank wine. Under different circumstances (if Joe hadn't been in the picture) it could have been very romantic.
