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 9th,
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.