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Ed007Toronto
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1912: A winter of record cold
ONTARIO ARCHIVES
A century ago, winter was a cause for celebration, a time when life slowed and lakes and rivers became frozen playgrounds. Here, a fleet of ice sailboats tunes up for a race on Toronto harbour in 1912, the coldest winter of the last century.
Lake Ontario froze solid, and hardy citizens warmly embraced the 20th century's coldest season
Feb 08, 2007 04:30 AM
Adam Mayers
Toronto Star
It may seem cold this week, but it is nothing, nothing, compared with the winter of 1912, a year that remains in the record books as the worst winter of the past 100 years.
By mid-January, it was so cold Toronto harbour was frozen solid. By early February, the near-shore lake ice was a metre thick, and you could skate from Toronto to Hamilton if you had the time. By the middle of the month, everyone was taking bets on whether the lake was frozen over. By month-end, it was.
It was the rumour that the lake ice was finally solid from Toronto to Rochester that brought a huge crowd to Sunnyside Park on the afternoon of Feb. 11, 1912. They wanted to witness what the Star called a once-in-a-lifetime experience, "a spectacle they had never seen before and may never witness again."
The shore from Sunnyside to Humber Bay was packed with people, and by 3 p.m. there were hundreds of people spilling out onto the ice. About 50 kept going until the paper estimated they were three miles out and from shore looked like "so many flies on a gigantic plate." When they were mere specks, they turned around – not because the ice was thin, as they later told the reporter, but because they feared getting lost. All around was grey in the fading light.
The lake did freeze over by the end of the month, the only time in the past century that it has. Superior did too. Although Michigan, Huron and shallow Erie have frozen in many winters since, Superior and Ontario are so deep and wide it is rarely cold enough to do the trick. But the winter of 1912 was the coldest January-March period of the 20th century and the second-coldest ever recorded.
Strangely, the papers wrote less about the weather then than now – perhaps because everyone enjoyed winter more, celebrating its pleasures rather than fighting its conditions. In an age before radio, parents and kids bundled up, went outside and stayed there all day. They kept their blood moving by playing hockey on a flooded rink, curling on a frozen pond or skating on a river. In winter you could layer up to control the cold, whereas in summer when it got really hot, there was no relief
As Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips says: "More people died in Toronto in heat waves than cold waves."
Heat was more of a nuisance than cold, because in a world without air conditioning or window screens, there was no relief from the conditions. Flies and mosquitoes were a constant pest, and the heat was made worse because of the Edwardian sense of proper attire – long pants and shirts for men and dresses with layers of undergarments for women. To that you could add smells that were not always coming up roses – rotting garbage and the pungent odour of manure. In fall and spring when the rain mixed the manure with mud, it was simply awful.
In winter, the smells and muck were gone. Travelling by sleigh was fast and easy on roads and rivers. The pace of life slowed and the heart of winter offered more time to socialize.
"Outdoor winter recreation was a big thing," says Carl Benn, chief curator of Toronto's Museums and Heritage Services. "Torontonians enjoyed it."
What made the winter of 1912 a record-breaker was not the absolute cold – 1934 was worse – but that it settled in quickly and stayed put. Phillips says the average daily temperature in the three winter months was —7C, compared with the long-term average of —4C. (Last winter, a mild one, saw the average at —1C.) In 1912, there were 56 days of temperatures below —10C. A normal winter has fewer than half that number of days that cold. Snowfall that year was also high, at 1.43 metres, almost double normal.
Startled residents reported hearing gunfire to police. It was actually trees exploding from the cold or ice grinding on the lake. There were fears that prisoners released from the Don Jail would freeze to death, so church groups sought donations of used coats.
Trains and streetcars broke down and commuters grumbled as much then as now. Streetcars couldn't move because the air brakes froze. Special crews used blowtorches to get things going. Water pipes burst and fuel turned solid in natural gas lines, choking off supply. The gas company had special pump plungers that pushed the solid fuel back down the pipes to open them up.
Many schools had inadequate heating and principals were required to report when temperatures could not be raised to 60F (15C) by the morning bell. Classes continued, with coats on.
By the end of February, the flow of the Niagara River was so constricted an ice bridge formed at the bottom of the gorge. The Maid of the Mist was pushed up onto the ice and several people drowned on Feb. 4 when they fell through a crevasse while trying to cross the river.
In a final note of exasperation, a short item on the editorial page made this observation: "A letter received this week from Hong Kong is marked `Via Siberia.' Our weather seems to be coming from the same route these days."
These days, doesn't ours too?
1912: A winter of record cold
ONTARIO ARCHIVES
A century ago, winter was a cause for celebration, a time when life slowed and lakes and rivers became frozen playgrounds. Here, a fleet of ice sailboats tunes up for a race on Toronto harbour in 1912, the coldest winter of the last century.
Lake Ontario froze solid, and hardy citizens warmly embraced the 20th century's coldest season
Feb 08, 2007 04:30 AM
Adam Mayers
Toronto Star
It may seem cold this week, but it is nothing, nothing, compared with the winter of 1912, a year that remains in the record books as the worst winter of the past 100 years.
By mid-January, it was so cold Toronto harbour was frozen solid. By early February, the near-shore lake ice was a metre thick, and you could skate from Toronto to Hamilton if you had the time. By the middle of the month, everyone was taking bets on whether the lake was frozen over. By month-end, it was.
It was the rumour that the lake ice was finally solid from Toronto to Rochester that brought a huge crowd to Sunnyside Park on the afternoon of Feb. 11, 1912. They wanted to witness what the Star called a once-in-a-lifetime experience, "a spectacle they had never seen before and may never witness again."
The shore from Sunnyside to Humber Bay was packed with people, and by 3 p.m. there were hundreds of people spilling out onto the ice. About 50 kept going until the paper estimated they were three miles out and from shore looked like "so many flies on a gigantic plate." When they were mere specks, they turned around – not because the ice was thin, as they later told the reporter, but because they feared getting lost. All around was grey in the fading light.
The lake did freeze over by the end of the month, the only time in the past century that it has. Superior did too. Although Michigan, Huron and shallow Erie have frozen in many winters since, Superior and Ontario are so deep and wide it is rarely cold enough to do the trick. But the winter of 1912 was the coldest January-March period of the 20th century and the second-coldest ever recorded.
Strangely, the papers wrote less about the weather then than now – perhaps because everyone enjoyed winter more, celebrating its pleasures rather than fighting its conditions. In an age before radio, parents and kids bundled up, went outside and stayed there all day. They kept their blood moving by playing hockey on a flooded rink, curling on a frozen pond or skating on a river. In winter you could layer up to control the cold, whereas in summer when it got really hot, there was no relief
As Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips says: "More people died in Toronto in heat waves than cold waves."
Heat was more of a nuisance than cold, because in a world without air conditioning or window screens, there was no relief from the conditions. Flies and mosquitoes were a constant pest, and the heat was made worse because of the Edwardian sense of proper attire – long pants and shirts for men and dresses with layers of undergarments for women. To that you could add smells that were not always coming up roses – rotting garbage and the pungent odour of manure. In fall and spring when the rain mixed the manure with mud, it was simply awful.
In winter, the smells and muck were gone. Travelling by sleigh was fast and easy on roads and rivers. The pace of life slowed and the heart of winter offered more time to socialize.
"Outdoor winter recreation was a big thing," says Carl Benn, chief curator of Toronto's Museums and Heritage Services. "Torontonians enjoyed it."
What made the winter of 1912 a record-breaker was not the absolute cold – 1934 was worse – but that it settled in quickly and stayed put. Phillips says the average daily temperature in the three winter months was —7C, compared with the long-term average of —4C. (Last winter, a mild one, saw the average at —1C.) In 1912, there were 56 days of temperatures below —10C. A normal winter has fewer than half that number of days that cold. Snowfall that year was also high, at 1.43 metres, almost double normal.
Startled residents reported hearing gunfire to police. It was actually trees exploding from the cold or ice grinding on the lake. There were fears that prisoners released from the Don Jail would freeze to death, so church groups sought donations of used coats.
Trains and streetcars broke down and commuters grumbled as much then as now. Streetcars couldn't move because the air brakes froze. Special crews used blowtorches to get things going. Water pipes burst and fuel turned solid in natural gas lines, choking off supply. The gas company had special pump plungers that pushed the solid fuel back down the pipes to open them up.
Many schools had inadequate heating and principals were required to report when temperatures could not be raised to 60F (15C) by the morning bell. Classes continued, with coats on.
By the end of February, the flow of the Niagara River was so constricted an ice bridge formed at the bottom of the gorge. The Maid of the Mist was pushed up onto the ice and several people drowned on Feb. 4 when they fell through a crevasse while trying to cross the river.
In a final note of exasperation, a short item on the editorial page made this observation: "A letter received this week from Hong Kong is marked `Via Siberia.' Our weather seems to be coming from the same route these days."
These days, doesn't ours too?