We will be traveling to visit family out west today, hope it stays above freezing so the water on the highway does not turn to ice while we are traveling.

Too bad we have to worry about these constant freeze – thaw events throughout our winter months now! Makes for rapidly changing road conditions that many fail to adjust to.

Always had them, maybe your memory is failing in your old age. In 1947 it was over 8 degrees on Dec 25th.

Thank you for posting that Slinky.

Ever Since weather records have been kept in PG there have been many Christmases where temp has been at or above freezing since early 1900’s this is nothing new

Here is the front page of a local newspaper date January 26, 1981. The top picture shows a farmer in Pineview bringing in the hay because the fall had been so wet.

http://pgnewspapers.lib.pg.bc.ca/fedora/repository/pgc:1981-01-26-01

The caption under the picture reads:

Pineview farmer, Leon Lussier, makes oats hay while the January sun shines.

Lussier was forced to abandon attempts to harvest the crops in the fall when heavy
rains turned the field into a quagmire. Since then the short crop has stood through
the light snowfall which in a normal year would have covered the grain causing it to
rot in the spring.

The recent thaw melted the sparse snowfall so, with the return of the light snowfall which in a normal year would have covered the grain causing it to rot in the spring.

With the return of freezing temperatures, it was possible to drive onto the bare fields to begin harvest­ing the crop, stalk and all, to use as cattle feed.

This might be a better link for some, a direct PDF version of the front page.
http://pgnewspapers.lib.pg.bc.ca/fedora/repository/pgc%3A1981-01-26-01/PDF/Page%20PDF

Also, in February 2002, when outdoor scenes of Dreamcatcher were being filmed here, there was no snow. They had to put pulp to put on a cabin built on Cranbrook Hill to simulate snow.

In addition, they had to film snow storm scenes on an interstate highway. They used Foothills and Otway Road intersection. Problem is, there was virtually no snow on the ground and there were no snowfalls on the way. They were about to move further north when the snow finally came.

One of the reasons they chose PG was that snow was virtually guaranteed and because the countryside looked similar to Maine.

Slinky and Dearth are certainly correct.

I think 1583 was also unusually warm here, but no one was keeping records, so we have to wait till someone find some 500 year old trees ….. ;-)

Just to add to your trivia Gus

During the filming they had to truck in a massive amount of snow and snow machines to Just Goode Food in the BCR, man that sucked at quitting time when we all wanted to go home.

They also had to use wax for ice on some small pond on the hart for the falling through the ice scene.

I think you are thinking about Reindeer Games. There was a falling through the ice scene in that. I do not recall there being one in Dreamcatcher, but I could have forgotten.

I did not realize there was a quitting time on movie sets ….. ;-)

Here is the clip from the scene you mentioned, billyinpg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd16x0wExDE

Sure miss ol sadrack and herman……..

As usual Gus got his facts a little discombobulated. I was one of the first men on the Dreamcatcher set and the absolute last man standing after 4 months. I can gaurantee you that there was plenty of snow to contend with on a regular basis. I also worked on the towers for the foothills shoot and lack of snow was not a problem. The only time the snowmakers were used was when they needed a shot of actual snow falling.

Hmmmm …. different experiences by different people from different points of view.

I still have pictures of the cabin with on Cranbrook Hill which was purpose built as one of the sets they built right near the crew trailer camp and the general store. Before the snow finally came, and you are correct, it finally came in plenty, they put flakes of pulp on the roof as well as the ground which was visible in the lens.

The production crew was also considering moving to Mackenzie for the snow storm scenes because there was no sign of snow in the forecast for the shoot they were preparing for and you were likely building towers for.

When one is working at that level of planning, one has to plan for contingencies.

The reason why I know is because the PG Film Commissioner was/is a good friend of mine. On top of that, the media became aware of it as well and there was a story or two about it in the news when they discovered that would be a possibility.

In fact, for a long time people in the City were not aware where the actual locations on West Lake and Cranbrook Hill were.

I’m guessing with a bad memory but was it 1980ish Pine Centre Mall was asking anyone with a shovel to come and shovel off the roof for $8 an hour ?

I was getting $50 a pop shovelling off the neighbours houses.

Here is a bit of weather history for Prince George.

http://weatherspark.com/history/28426/2002/Prince-George-British-Columbia-Canada

from the above site:

“Relative to the average, the hottest day was December 12. The high temperature that day was 11°C, compared to the average of -4°C, a difference of 15°C. In relative terms the warmest month was December, with an average high temperature of 0°C, compared to an typical value of -4°C.”

“The longest warm spell was from January 1 to January 22, constituting 22 consecutive days with warmer than average high temperatures.”

“The coldest day of 2002 was January 28, with a low temperature of -34°C.”

There is a chart on that site. Look at the gray bars to see that January 7th was the high with 7C degrees.

Thanks for your attack on me!!

Pine centre roof shoveling picture, February 1982.

http://pgnewspapers.lib.pg.bc.ca/fedora/repository/pgc%3A1982-12-31-07/PDF/Page%20PDF

But I am not sure middle finger. EnterSandman might have a different recollection than the cameras. ;-)

The PG citizen has not been digitized for the last 15 years or so yet, so cannot find some of the pictures in the citizen of the snow situation in early to mid January.

Ha….cool photo. :)