Last weekend was Family Day weekend in Ontario (and in some other provinces), so we headed down to the Toronto Islands. Anyone in Toronto will know that it was very cold last weekend with temperatures reaching as low as -40 with windchill on Sunday!! We went on Saturday, as despite not being forecast to be as sunny as Sunday or Monday, it was due to be a bit ‘warmer’.

You can tell how cold it was, as when I returned to to work on Tuesday, my Canadian colleagues (who should be used to these temperatures) promptly told me that we were lunatics for having visited the islands over the weekend! They’re such wimps!

At this time of year, everything on the islands is closed, including bicycle hire, amusement park, farm, etc. I’m sure that there is nothing stopping you from visiting the beach, but you’re more likely to get frostbite rather than sunburnt!

We’d been to the Islands once before, back in September on our 2nd day in Canada. Back then it was warm and sunny t-shirt weather, and we discussed how we might get some ice cream once back on the mainland. This time ice cream was the last thing on our mind as we shivered our way around the islands. The rickety sounding boardwalk on the Lake Ontario side of the islands that we had cycled along in September was now covered in a thick blanket of snow. The marina that we had looked at in September was now frozen over and turned into a temporary ice rink. The view we had of an inlet complete with gliding swans was now replaced by a frozen over Toronto Harbour covered in snow.

Perhaps this doesn’t sound very enjoyable. Well, my fingers have never hurt so much having been buffeted by -20 winds as I took some photos, and my camera got so cold that it got all slow and started making funny noises (it works fine now it’s thawed out). So yes, there were some less enjoyable parts. But in the end it was worth it, because it’s not every day you get a view over frozen water, and being able to contrast it with our previous experience was very cool (no pun intended)!

I also think it was worth it for the ferry ride over and back. The ferry costs $7 each, and you feel like you are on an icebreaker ship as big chunks of ice are forced away from and under the boat. If the ferry slightly deviates from its previous paths, you can also watch as it cracks out more of the ice sheet. You don’t get that experience in the summer!

Stewart