Wrapping up Yellowknife and Off to Calgary

On my last day in Yellowknife I had the pleasure of experiencing -42c weather and seeing snow actually blowing upwards! It was great! In the morning, the walk to the office is a mere 5 or 6 blocks but in this kind of weather it has it’s challenges; especially for a mild weather dwelling Vancouverite like me. As usual, I bundled up in wool long johns, layered myself in thermal sweaters and such. This particular morning, I had decided to wear my glasses instead of cramming my contact lenses into my dryballs… err I mean eyeballs. This was my first mistake. It’s a mistake because I forgot about my need to breathe. Let me explain further…

As we walked out into the cold to trek to the office, I pulled up my neck dickie up to cover my face from the wind and cold. Of course, need to do this thing called breathing. Apparently, it’s the thing that separates the living from the dead. Anywhooo… because I have this need to breathe, each breath I took steamed up my glasses. I tried to breathe less intensely taking short breaths. That did not help. My glasses continued to steam both on the inside and the outside of the lens. Of course, it being -42c with the windchill the steam freezes and a thick layer of ice start to form on my lenses.

My second mistake, my glasses are metal framed. So as the steam formed into ice on my glasses, it is also caused them to literally stick to my face! I don’t think it helps that my nose bridge is pretty much non-existent. I am Asian after all and I accept that I have flat face and a flat nose. But in this kind unbearable, extreme cold, metal framed glasses that sit snug against a flat face instead of resting nicely on a nose bridge is just a bad idea!

Now remember, this is only a 5 to 6 block walk and all of this managed to happen within block number 2 of the walk! Needless to say, by the time we arrived at block 3, where Dean felt the need to stop and take a photo of us in front of a sign that displayed the temperature, I could not see anything! I could not see through my glasses nor could I see peering over the lenses because my vision is so crappy. I’m literally as blind as a bat! Good thing Dean was around to be my seeing-eye-person!

NOTE TO SELF: when in temperatures below -20c, wear contact lenses as glasses will freeze to your face.