HOW WOMEN WINTER IN CANADA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue XIII, 31 March 1894, Page 306

HOW WOMEN WINTER IN CANADA.

It is during the snow season and the water season that la belle Canadicnne is seen to her best advantage. To the stranger she is perhaps more captivating, with sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks, on her snow shoes, than in cool blouse and shady hat, with sallow cheeks, paddling (as only a Canadian can) her own canoe. The great extremes of heat and cold are ruinous to the fairest skins, and one often sees a Canadian girl’s beauty spoiled by the dried-up complexion so familiar on colonial faces. As a rule, women’s looks distinctly suffer in cold weather ; the Canadian girl’s improve. Dressed for a long snow shoe tramp in a skirt and coat made out of a fluffy white blanket bordered with red, a fisherman’s stocking-cap pulled close over her head and ears—only allowing her fringe to escape—the hood of her coat drawn over the stocking cap and standing up in a peak like the hood ot a Capuchin monk, she is a picture of beautiful health and graceful activity. Business is so much interfered with in the snow season that men and women alike are bent on amusement. The smart four-in hand Sleigh Club meets every Saturday afternoon at the Windsor Hotel. There are some magnificent turns out, for Canadians are good judges of horseflesh, and there is great rivalry among the members to decorate their sleighs with the most beautiful furs and the prettiest women. The sleighs are made of fancy woods highly polished, with silver bells and mounts ; and how captivating the ‘chosen fair’ looks on the box seat, mufiled up in sables, her eyes dancing with pride and anticipated pleasure ! Though the temperature is probably 20 below zero, the sun is so blight and the sky so blue that you want a sunshade, but your hand would be frozen if you dared to hold one up. The driver is eold enough, kept busy as he is with his lively ‘four.’ M any strangers are compelled to wear smoked glasses in the snow season ; the glare from the intensely blue sky on the white snow is blinding. Tobogganing is almost more enjoyable by night than by day—the danger is more apparent. A toboggan down the Tuque Blue Club slide is a very different matter from coasting on the natural snow, which is so often confused with tobogganning. On the Tuque Blue slide the course is sheer down the mountain side, between boards which contain a sheet of glassy ice just wide enough to fit the toboggan. The toboggan is started off a shoot like a switchback railway. What follows is best described by the Chinaman's • Swish, swish, walkee back a mile.’ The track is lighted with flaring torches. An old lady of seventy years, who had lived all her life in California, came to Montreal to see the carnival ; she would not leave the city until she had been down the perilous Tuque Blue toboggan-slide. It often surprises strangers that open sleighs are the ordinary means of conveyance in a country where, for months, the temperature is below zero.

Little children love the snow season. Every mite has his toboggan, for coasting down the walls of snow which are made by the clearings of the streets and sidewalks, piled up on either side of the street : they are often so high that they completely block out the view of the traffic on the street from the windows. There are openings in them at intervals to allow one to get access to the opposite sidewalk. They are an endless delight to children ; they make tunnels and snow-houses, and, in fact, live in them all day long. They never seem to feel the cold ; wrapped up in warm blanket-coats, they roll and tumble about with crimson cheeks and glowing eyes. Skating is usually enjoyed under cover, and what a revelation it is to see Canadians waltzing to a splendid band 1 In the skating rink there is every kind of luxury in the way of refreshment and lounging chairs. You can have afternoon tea and listen to the band ; and if you are English you will not skate, but sit and watch

the Canadian girl waltz—she has no points to learn in grace of movement. Shis is always a pretty dancer, but she lacks one exquisite grace when waltzing without her skates. It was said by a rather smart writer, long ago, that women, though they did many things for men, did not dress for men. ‘They dress for themselves and at each other.’ This is proved true by the fact that not a woman is found willing to make herself conspicuously pretty, just now, by dressing herself a few months out of the fashion. Any woman with an average figure might get the respectful homage of the eyes of men by appearing in a slendershouldered jacket and graceful petticoat. Her hat might be as fashionable as she liked, for hats—though badly worn —are just now almost always of a good shape. She could escape the slightest suspicion of dowdiness by having her dress and jacket unmistakably well made. There she would walk, singularly charming, looking taller and better than anyone else, the only elegant creature in town. But she will not. She prefers the approval of a dressmaker to the looks of lovers. And yet if it is always to be the dressmaker who designs our dresses, why not let the builder plan our houses and the printer write our books ?