By Dianne Cornish, Review Journalist

We all have stories about big winter storms and how we lived through them, but it doesn’t look like 2012 is going to provide any fodder for our collection of snow survival sagas. In fact, winter, so far this year, has been a complete dud, and while many are quite content with that, I’m not among them. I like four distinct seasons each year and that means winter with snow, cold temperatures and the occasional big blow.

I recently read a flashback article about the blizzard of ’77 that struck Ontario with all its fury–high winds, blowing snow, poor visibility and bitter temperatures. While I don’t wish for an encore, I have to admit that snowstorms of the 1977 magnitude hold a fascination for me. Maybe it’s the calm that follows that I enjoy the most, along with the picturesque landscape that comes with freshly fallen snow. For whatever reason, the fascination persists and I just cannot get used to a winter without snow.

True, we managed to get a few centimetres last weekend and it’s actually stayed for more than a few days, but we’ll soon be losing it again.

What I remember most about the winter of 1977 was the big joke it played on our family. We had spent many years in Northern Ontario, living first in North Bay and then Sudbury, and we prided ourselves on being hardy northerners, able to withstand minus 20-degree Fahrenheit temperatures, appreciate the crunch of snow under our feet on cold winter days and even drive skillfully through the white stuff.

But in 1977, we decided to move to warmer climes; southern Ontario beckoned and we all fully expected a rather uneventful, mild winter. But my parents had chosen to move to London, Ontario and on January 28, 1977, nature unleashed her fury and quickly taught us that Ontario winters aren’t restricted to the northern part of the province. So during our first winter in balmy southern Ontario, London was virtually shut down, the militia was called in to help remove the huge mounds of snow that lined the city streets and we and our parents sat in front of our cozy fireplace and laughed about our “best-laid plans that went awry.”

As I recall, the winter of 1978 also produced a doozy of a storm. My grandfather, who lived in Trenton, died January 9 of that year and we barely made it to his funeral because another storm had gripped southwestern Ontario and transportation had ground to a halt. Luckily, my parents chose the right train, the one that went south through Brantford rather than the one that was to travel through St. Marys. Their train made it through; the other one became snowbound.

The winters of 30 or more years ago were the real McCoys. I don’t know what to call them now.