To shovel or blow the snow?

I wasn’t prepared for the snow that fell Saturday night nor for the filling in of my driveway early Monday morning. I really have started enjoying this low snowfall year.
I suppose that I should welcome this snowfall, knowing that come spring much of it will make it into our steams and lakes and raise the water level. We can normally expect about 1.75 metres of snow in a winter and so far we are way below that amount.
My hope was that with little snow, spring might arrive much earlier.
This snow should be good for our economy just like the cold weather of last week was great for the automotive shops.
Monday I was just looking down the sidewalk at seven in the morning and wondering why the sidewalk snowplough had not been down the street yet. It sometimes arrives before the grader. Living on Second Street, in Fort Frances, with an elementary school only one block away, this section of sidewalk normally receives prompt attention.
Council in the Town of Fort Frances is looking for ways to reduce its public works budget. When I was on council over 30 years ago, we ran into a sidewalk snow problem. The banks on either side of the sidewalk were too high for the plough to push the snow away. We had to go back to an old municipal bylaw that requires citizens to clear the walks in front of their homes.
It wasn’t popular, but the citizens did respond and the municipal sidewalks were shovelled out.
Sidewalk cleaning has always been a discretionary council decision and Fort Frances Council has consistently ploughed sidewalks in winter unless extreme snow falls made sidewalk cleaning impossible.
The cities of Waterloo and Kitchener and several others across Southern Ontario require their citizens to clear their sidewalks in front of their home before nine in the morning. Failure results in a crew hired by the city showing up to do the snow removal and you are required to pay the bill.
The cost of the city crew is really expensive and homeowners jump on the snow quickly.
I have suggested solution to several councillors and I suspect that they have debated the merits of the idea. As I surveyed the sidewalks, I wondered if they had made a decision to eliminate sidewalk snowploughing.
There have been times when I have hand shovelled the whole sidewalk. I did it to show off that I could shovel all that white powder and at the end I felt really proud of myself. Today, I could probably still clean all the town walks around my home, but I am more inclined to let the town do the cleaning. Some might call that getting old.
I live on a corner lot and the total length of sidewalk that I would end up shovelling is over 200 feet. And if it became a requirement to shovel that amount of sidewalk, I have already made the decision that it will be done with a snow-blower. I have already chosen the size. It would have to be a minimum of 26” wide so that making two passes down the sidewalk, the sidewalk would be clean. I like the idea of electric start. And I have formulated all the reasons to make the case to my wife on why we need a snow blower.
The snow and clean-up is probably good news for those businesses selling shovels, snow machines and snow blowers and those making repairs to snow blowers. They really can do with some winter weather.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher