If I was asked to describe myself in five words, one of those words would be “chionophile” – literally “snow lover”. Dr Devin Finaughty shares his snowy experience with us.
Growing up in sunny South Africa, snow was never a regular part of my life. Cold, yes (my hometown, Johannesburg, regularly sees sub-zero winter temperatures), but not snow. Those few times in my childhood when the wonderful white stuff graced our lands were pure magic for me. I fondly and vividly remember each and every experience I enjoyed frolicking through nature’s fairy dust, usually in the relatively nearby eastern highlands of South Africa and Lesotho. So you can appreciate my surprise and delight to discover, upon moving to Cape Town in the southwestern Cape of South Africa for university, that the Cape Fold Mountains caught a healthy coating of snow every winter. Thus began my annual pilgrimage to the Cape snow – one I undertook without fail, and unbridled, childlike joy, for a full decade.
I can’t quite pin down what it is about snow that fascinates and vivifies me. Maybe it is its eternally gentle character – soft and graceful, even in the strongest blizzard – softening the earth, in sight and sound, wherever it comes to rest. Or perhaps it is its incredible range of beauty – from the microscopic intricacy and uniqueness of each snowflake through to the landscape-wide dreamscapes it crafts in the terrains it graces. Or it may be snow’s fleetingness – rare and short-lived in most circumstances – that makes the time spent in it more precious and memorable.
Truth be told, it is probably the combination of all these marvellous attributes that lured me into the mountains every winter in search of white gold. Most times, I arrived after the snow had fallen and enjoyed but one day rolling around it its goodness as it melted under the bright African sun. But every now and then, I’d get the time and place just right, and I’d meet the blizzard in all its glory. Oh, how I revelled in those special moments.
Moving to England in autumn 2019 to take up a lectureship at the University of Kent, I buzzed with excitement at the prospect of experiencing “proper snow” in my first Northern Hemisphere winter. The only problem: I had moved to the driest and warmest corner of the British Isles. Great for BBQ weather in the summer; not so much for snow in winter. I’d been told that good snow was possible in the Southeast, but it was a rarity – only a handful of times per decade and, like South African snow, short-lived. Nevertheless, I clung to the hope that we’d be graced but white wintery goodness. It was not to be, and my disappointment was palpable.
Fast-forward to January 2021: literally everywhere else in the UK has enjoyed a fabulously snowy winter, and Canterbury has stayed depressingly drab and brown – the cold, dark clouds drifting across our skies withholding their glimmering icy bounty destined for lands further west. My mood matches the sky… But something brews in the east on the back of a split in the polar vortex. In the first week of February the weather models start converging and snow for the Southeast appears on the horizon. I daren’t raise my expectations – they’d be dashed twice already this season. Friday, February 5th, the clouds give way to azure skies and icy winds. I revel in the sunshine but can’t help feel that the snow may be a no-show. Saturday night the temperature starts falling…could this be it? I awake before dawn on Sunday morning and look out the window: utter disappointment. I roll back under the warm covers and dream of African snow. What happens next is best articulated by J. B. Priestley:
“The first fall of snow is not only an event but it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up to find yourself in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment, where is it to be found?”
And what an entrancing world my wife and I woke up to just two hours later! My excitement dial is turned up to 11 at the sight of huge snowflakes wafting down in their thousands. We suit up warmly and go for a magical four-hour walk around Canterbury – marvelling at how the snow breathes new wonder into familiar scenery. And thus it remains for seven full, fabulous, captivating days, with successive snowfalls enriching the landscape’s beauty and gifting us enchanting memories that both rival and complement our best of African snow. What a fabulous crescendo to the Winter 2021 movement of nature’s wonderful annual symphony – one which has left my inner chionophile is well and truly satisfied.
Thank you to Dr Devin Finaughty for writing this magical blog piece and sharing his photographs with us.