It made obvious sense to write about the Covid winter and also the winter of the most snow in the past 25 years, but in doing so I realized I quite like writing a recap of each winter. And so, you're getting a recap of the 2021-22 winter whether you like it or not!

Prior to the holidays, I first shovelled on December 2nd and by the end of December I had 13 hours of shovelling for December over 14 visits. This allowed me to bike three times.

Returning to Corner Brook in mid-January, I definitely wasn't in snow-free Jackson, Cincinnati or Bucyrus Ohio anymore.

I couldn't complain about the snow amounts at the skatepark though. Over time, I've realized that if you either leave the park alone or build the snow piles in a strategic way, a lot of the snow will just blow through - especially when you're talking about December and January.

The above photo is from 130 in the morning and it shows that leaving the park alone doesn't work for me. The only wrinkle in this late night clearing job was that a plow came and sat by the entrance to the recreation area, leaving me to wonder if I was in trouble for bombing into here with my car.

Once the plow finally pushed forward into the parking area 15 minutes later, he hollered out that he thought "someone was getting some skin back here" and that he wanted to give them a chance to get dressed.

Nope, the only thing getting plowed back here is the snow!

Another funny time involved a Saturday storm and my newfound belief that it's better to get out and shovel early on, just as the storm's arriving, and before the storm's over - therefore I went out late at night and floated through the unplowed side streets amidst howling winds and whipping snow.

Getting stuck at McDonald's while trying to get a coffee - the drive-thru was closed anyway - eventually I rolled down Wellington Street and continued plowing through the snow like a moose on a winter mission. That plow operator would have bigger fish to fry this night.

This was also the winter that I truly observed the weather, to an over-the-top extent, since I was sick of people saying we have it better on this side of the island. The most egregious comment being some clown on the internet saying that Corner Brook has the best winter on the whole Island of Newfoundland.

All of those weather observations made me appreciate the sunny breaks during my walks at dusk with Isy.

As January ended, I had shovelled for another 11.5 hours during 10 visits to the skatepark.

The eight January days I was in Corner Brook had a grand total of five hours of partly sunny skies (absolutely no bluebird times).

Into February, there was actually a day where the temperature got a couple degrees above freezing while rain fell and attacked the snow.

Up at higher elevations, this meant a fun obstacle course of narrowed roads, cars in the road to allow driveway shovelling, plus ruts and ice trying to shoot you every which way.

Week two had a bluebird day and then week three had one day where it was mostly sunny in the morning. Of course my friend Rosie showed up to hike on one of those sunny days, further pushing the false narrative that Corner Brook is nicer in the winter.

This was down in the village of Port au Port though. They probably get sunnier winters than us.

This is Table Mountain, a scenic plateau where a private road leads up to a federally-owned radar dome (it used to be an American radar site). I posted about it all the way back in 2009 and figured on a pleasant day like this, it would make for a great location to go snowshoe.

For a mountain that gets legendarily bad weather according to accounts from back in those American days, we couldn't have asked for better conditions.

One thing that caught me off guard up here was finding this derelict cinderblock structure still standing thirteen years after my first visit. I always fantasized about turning it into a DIY skatepark, which doesn't make sense when nearby Stephenville has easily-accessible abandoned buildings and you wouldn't have to snowshoe up a closed road in the winter to reach them. Not to mention the whole dealing with the feds thing.

Still though, a couple of bank-to-walls in here? A ledge?

Winds whipping through the hole in the wall? Ice encasing everything? Oh it would be the best DIY skatepark!

Regardless, I was psyched the building was still here and Rosie laughed at my excitement.

We celebrated the perfect merger of a hike involving both scenery and abandoned buildings with Chinese at the Hong Kong Restaurant in downtown Stephenville.

Back to the grind - literally, heyo! - and the previous blue bird day, plus a day or two without the ever-present onshore flurries, meant I had a free line at the skatepark.

Following 2.5 hours of shovelling and ice breaking during the morning of February 12th, I was able to penetrate the underlying Christmas melt ice and then the first bike was drawn on the calendar for February 2022!

The Gods even threw us one of those 5°C/41°F pouring rain days on February 17th.

Whenever we get that first warm rain day amidst or following winter, it's one of the best days of the year.

And boy howdy did I go hog wild taking out the ice!

I had to laugh as I was sitting here thankful for the bounty before me, but then that hacky thing came true where they say, "if you like the weather, wait 10 mins!"

10 minutes, not a word of a lie, and a sunny, dry day was snuffed out by a bullshit, onshore snow squall.

Goodbye, February!

February ended with 34.5 hours of shovelling over 33 skatepark visits. This resulted in three riding sessions, woot!

Rolling into March, the tracking and posting of weather was making half a liar out of me.

It didn't feel like we had a bluebird day, five hours of mostly sunny, plus four hours of a mix of sun and cloud - but there I was, caught off guard by the dry skatepark and forced to ride in my office shoes.

And yes, I could feel the wind and cold on those exposed foot bones (one of which is apparently the Navicular bone).

As mid-March approached, it was time to leave behind the cold feet and balaclavas though, as I headed halfway across the country to sunnier pastures.

I'll cover that trip in upcoming update(s).

It's funny because even though Isy and I were going somewhere in April, I still had to get away from this nonsense in March.

To my surprise, the hills and the snow volume weren't all that hellacious upon my return.

And Corner Brook kept getting either legitimate storms or only just a bit of snow squalls - which, if you're also going to give me a bit of sun, then it's easy enough to keep the park clear.

Suddenly I had four more bikes drawn on the calendar since my return to town, with an incredible three in a row from March 24th to March 26th (March 25th is shown above).

It felt so free and crazy that I lost my mind and thought maybe the Pasadena Skatepark was free of snow just on its own, haha. Nahhhhhhh.

You know how they have former drug users go around and lecture kids about never trying drugs? I should go around and lecture kids about how important it is to shovel your local skatepark. It's such a life hack. God does it make things better.

My Kansas Jayhawks winning March Madness also obviously helped make things better.

Not to mention the new Mexican restaurant in town! And this spot wasn't just legitimate for rural Newfoundland, it was plain good. It was hard for us not to give 20% of our paycheques every week to the friendly couple who operated it (and some weeks we probably did).

Unfortunately Tlacuache was located in the former restaurant space of a hotel that has a seedy reputation in town - leading to dopes avoiding it because of the hotel's reputation. It only lasted in Corner Brook for a little over a year.

I obviously loved the Mexican restaurant's location, from the confusing entry hallway all the way down to the padded, swinging kitchen doors.

Even better, on one of our visits Isy's friend suggested going over to the hotel bar after our meal. I hadn't been in this space in over ten years, all the way back to when it was the popular dance bar on Fridays and my friend was a bartender. Going to a dance bar by myself led to me drinking a few road sodas along the way through Margaret Bowater Park, plus having a few more once here and awkwardly glued to the bar. When you combine that with how dark it was in here during those dance bar days, I never realized how cool and dated the Hotel Corner Brook's bar really was.

Following that visit, I always meant to go back to get some better pictures and heck, even sit with a beer and a book, but never got around to it. And that won't happen now as the province rents out the entire hotel as a homeless shelter and the bar is closed. Damn.

Anyway, as we moved into the month of April, there weren't many more shovels drawn on the calendar. 2.5 hours shovelling on March 26th and then just an hour of shovelling on both April 5th and April 6th.

March ended with 12.5 hours of shovelling and nine biking sessions. April had the aforementioned two hours of shovelling.

That's 13 hours of shovelling for December, 11.5 hours for January, 34.5 hours for February, 12.5 hours for March and 2 hours for April. A grand total of 73.5 hours.

Following an unbelievable November where I didn't shovel once and rode 28 out of 30 days, I think it's fair to start a measure of this exercise's worth in December. That month I rode three times, then January was a no go, February had the aforementioned three sessions, March had nine, and April had six before April 15th; April 15th being the day where it looks like the skatepark may have melted on its own as I have a picture of the Curling fish plant without much snow.

That means in 2022 I shovelled 73.5 hours for an extra 21 sessions.

Very much worth it in my opinion.

This was another winter where it felt like we escaped relatively unscathed. Corner Brook has had a couple of these winters in a row now and we all fear we're going to get a "normal" Corner Brook winter one of these years, but so far so good for these last couple.

Heck, maybe that random internet guy was on to something...¹

1 - he was absolutely not on to anything. F that clueless bozo.