Fourth Sunday of Advent: Dreaming of the Cold

An early December snowstorm raised our hopes for a completely chilly December after a very late fall. And indeed it was a bit of a miracles as we usually have snow one day and rain comes along, or high temps come along, to wipe 90 percent of it away the next day. This time the temps stayed low enough that we had some snow around for a week, even if on the last day it was just in the folds of the roofs of houses and in shady spots most of the day. But in the past few days we've had 60s, and sometimes high 60s, and almost all very stick 60s as it keeps raining.

So I've been fantasizing about Canada, somewhere I haven't been in a good many years. I went there several times in the late 60s and the 70s, including to what was left of Expo 67 in Montreal and several times to Quebec City (for some breathtaking views of the St. Lawrence River from the escarpments of the Citadel) and once near Toronto to Canada's Wonderland. (There were also a couple of trips to the Canadian side of the falls at Niagara, where I remember wonderful cherry orchards between Horseshoe Falls and the little city of Niagara on the Lake.)

I fondly remember Canadian programs, too, like Swiss Family Robinson with Chris Wiggins and Diana Leblanc, and Strange Paradise, with Colin Fox and Dawn Greenhalgh, but some of my best memories are of Canadian Christmas stories, including the unusual North Station/Station Nord, which I saw for the first time when we got HD television some years back. Sadly, North Station/Station Nord is not available anywhere I can find online, and you can't buy a DVD. You can find it in Italian in two places on YouTube as Miracolo di Natale, but the voices are chipmunk and at least one is "flopped" (mirror imaged).

But here are a couple of links to a few Canadian Christmas tales, including two episodes of The Forest Rangers, which was syndicated in the 1960s and turned up on early morning weekend television:

The Christmas Martian

The Christmas Raccoons

The Forest Rangers: "A Christmas Story"

The Forest Rangers: "Santa MacLeod"