NDD Readings

Wind warnings were all over the internet. They said to expect 90 km.
Then the weather office issued a severe weather bulletin. Time to
hunker down here by Lake Superior at Montreal River and wait for it
all to happen.

I had scheduled Sunday afternoon to write my column about the
extinction of distinction. But the signs of impending November gales
were too much to ignore. I switched gears, grabbed my NDD’s
(non-digital devices) and decided to follow the progress of the storm.
My NDD’s included pen, paper, a barometer from the 1970s (The numbers
it gives are not of the digital accuracy, but the rotating needle does
portend the weather.), an outside thermometer from the 1990s and a set
of eyes. For 24 hours I noted what’s what and learned how a storm of
this size traipses through our yard.

The first hint that something was up came when I got up early Sunday
morning. I went outside and was met by unusual warmth. It was 12 C and
the air felt thick, mushy and full of that persistent perpetual
dampness that is so November.

At 10:27 am I tapped on our trusty wooden barometer. Our unit had
flinched down to 98.0 kPa and was heading towards Stormy from Rain. Oh
yeah, keep an eye on that, I thought. By 12:30 pm the reading was 97.1
and the temperature was 14C. When the sun tried to peek out from under
cloud cover, its light had a strange brilliant intensity. The sky was
a milky grey; the lake was grey; the dark grey horizon was straight
and small SW rollers made bumps under a smooth surface. Gulls sitting
on the lake showed the only white on the water.

At 1:10 pm, our barometer had sunk further, entering the Stormy range.
Ten minutes later a swarm cloud of gulls circled out over the lake,
the horizon got fuzzy and a grey white wall was heading in from the
SW. Rain began to fall, a few drops at first then a major downpour. By
2:40pm, with a barometer at 97.0, the rain was firing down like
bullets. There was no horizon, no whitecaps, little wind and the same
small rollers.

An hour and a half later, the rain still was coming - not bullets but
a steady dance. At 4:57 a gentle rain plinked on the puddles. It was
back to 12c; our barometer dipped to 96.7 and darkness began to settle
in. There was the same gentle roll under a calm lake. The sky was 50
shades of grey. As the light faded I began to wonder what all the
warnings and fuss were about.

Except that our barometer continued to plummet. By 7:45 it read 96.0;
the puddles were getting fat on all that rain and there still was no
wind.

But, not for long. Around 9:00pm I detected a shift. And by 9:30 we
heard horizontal rain pelting the windows and that unmistakeable,
constant roar. Barometer at 95.9. Ouch. The march of the waves had
begun. Four hours later the wind was a window rattling battering ram.
And, at first light, the monstrous foamy mouth of one of the biggest
waves I’ve ever seen smashed onto the bedrock and devoured the shore.
The rest of the morning was never ending 3-4 m monster waves and
driving rain. Then, temperatures fell, rain turned to snow, the waves
started their collapse and barometer readings began their climb back
up. And later that afternoon I heard of storm consequences - trees on
power lines, rivers over flowing over their banks and a lake freighter
seeking refuge in Batchawana Bay.

Our November Gales are the stuff of legends. When Superior becomes a
tumultuous white sea, the stories of men and ships lying on the bottom
always seem to surface. One hundred years ago, from Nov 6, 1913 to Nov
11, 1913, there was a storm with 145 km winds and 11 m waves. That
gale hit the Great Lakes basin, taking out 19 ships and drowning 250
people. Most of the damage was in Lake Huron, with Lake Superior
swallowing the Leafield and the Henry B Smith. In May, 2013,
searchers, using computer data, discovered the wreckage of the Smith.
But only Lake Superior knows how to find the Leafield.

Today our severe weather bulletins make lake travel much safer and
digital devices have awesome advice. They can make accurate forecasts
and keep us connected when the predictions prove true. But, at the
same time, let’s not forget to keep our own wits sharp too. For they
give us the real warning about an approaching storm.

100,000 Years of Circadian Rhythm

Enough is enough. That one hour is too precious. I really don’t want to give it away again.

Adjusting to the time change has always been an ordeal. We weren’t meant to live our lives by a clock. We were meant to run our lives by natural light. That’s 100,000 years of circadian rhythm. Going to sleep after dark and arising with the sun is how we evolved. But in came electricity and the flickering screen, so bye - bye sleep. The bears have it right – hit the dens when the sun heads south and come back out when the light returns.

I like the closing in of the darkness, the pre winter days of low light and early orange sunsets.  A walk through the woods, now that the leaves are down, is a step through a world of slanty shadows. Light pops through in different ways. And sometimes the blinding brightness off Lake Superior filters through the trees to ignite a late fall surprise, a bit of wonder from a declining season. Last week small, pure white mushrooms beamed like the petals of some alien delicate flower. This week, the view around leafless trees opened up an undulating, dusky forest floor. The grey glory of November has arrived.

In nature, life is exceedingly simple. In our modern life, simple things have become exceedingly complex. Turning the clocks back an hour is an obvious example. To get a handle on this time shift I discovered some very interesting data. The idea to set clocks back an hour first entered our world through the portal of Benjamin Franklin’s genius in 1784. He was in Paris at the time as the first US ambassador to France. The Americans had just won their independence after a nasty war with England. The French had been huge players in this win; their navy scoring very important victories off the eastern seaboard. But the war had cost France a pretty penny and now the country was broke. To save money on candles, Franklin suggested the time change. Then, in 1895, Canadian George Hudson suggested our government mandate a two hour change back and forth (I’m glad that idea didn’t come to fruition!). Another plan emerged in 1905 when William Willet thought we should adjust the clocks in 20 minute increments each Sunday in September and April. That went nowhere too. But in 1916, to save much needed energy for the war effort, the Canadian government rolled back the clocks and marched them forward again in the spring. History tells the rest. We’re still at it.

The past weekend when we changed our clocks, a few places in the country avoided the switch. All of Saskatchewan, with its thousands of adamant, common sense farmers, rejects the change except for Lloydminster where the Alberta /Saskatchewan border runs right through the town. Parts of B. C. including the Peace River region and the East Kootenays, said no. And in our own province of Ontario we also have a couple of nay sayer places - Pickle Lake, New Osnaburgh and Atikokan.

I decide to find out more. I called Thelma Cameron in Atikokan. She is an owner of the Fletcher Canoe Company and said that when she arrived in Atikokan in the 1980s the no - time - change rule was in place then.

Cameron says that people in her town are quite happy with their time situation. “We really like that we don’t have the time change,” she said.  “Every once in a while there is another vote but the town always says, ‘Let’s leave it ’”. When she and I talked about the difficulties of adjusting to the time change Cameron laughed. “Then the people in Atikokan must be well adjusted,” she said.

There are regular reminders for the folks in Atikokan that most of the country adjusts their clocks twice a year. Besides having to set computers and cell phones, their closest cities adopt the rigours of Daylight Saving Time. Fort Frances, the closest city west of Atikokan is in the Manitoba time zone, which is an hour behind Ontario. But when the clocks go back, Atikokan and Fort Frances are on the same hour. And when Thunder Bay, the closest city to the east, puts their clocks back, Atikokan time is then an hour ahead.

This is such a complicated relationship that we have created with time and light. We have four months before the time change gives us another hit. On March 9^th, 2014 we once more return to Daylight Saving Time and forfeit an hour. Until then we might as well adjust and enjoy a wee bit of extra morning light and java. And strengthen up for the coming winter. At least that’s some thought to fall back on.