January - the bleakest of all Canadian months. Gone are the good times and camaraderie of the Christmas season, lost in the shadows of burned out bulbs, piles of pine needles and wasted tatters of coloured paper. Ahead is naught but unceasing darkness, relentless toil and the cruel chilling frosts of winter. In short, nothing but...wait up ... hold on a cotton-freezin' minute! Did someone say "cruel chilling frosts of winter"? Let us reconsider.

"New Year Ushered in with Quiet Jollity, First Baby Born, Midnight Sun Club Elects New Officers," Typical January headlines, nothing to write home about, but "Cruel Chilling Frosts, Mercury Plummets!" Now that is news. That is a headline easily shortened to a single three-letter word: I-C-E.

As cometh the New Year, so cometh the cold. The kind of cold a person can really count on, cold that makes ice, good ice, pure ice, smooth, fast, clean ice. The tangible nectar of the Gods of Shinny. On a good day, you look through the ice down to the very bottom of the lake. Magic.

Until the addition of ice-making equipment in the Cranbrook Memorial Arena in 1954, the month of January marked the unofficial official start of skating season in a town dependent on Mother Nature's frozen bounty. And not just skating, mind you. It must be more than just coincidence that if we take the single word "ICE" toss away the "I" and add different letters, Voila: H-O-C-K-E-Y. For half a century, the beginning of January marked the real start of the hockey season. A season that sometimes stretched all the way to March.

It is not that Cranbrook was a one-sport town. The warmer months saw many sporting activities. From 1898 onwards baseball was front and centre with football (and that could mean either soccer or rugby) a close second. Lawn tennis, track & field, boxing and wrestling all attracted crowds. Even cricket and ping pong had their day. Lacrosse was popular whenever the local team could find competition. Lawn bowling, hose reel racing, oh, and Good Grief, do not forget horseracing. That was very popular. Horse racing up on the original Moir Park Hill. Yes indeed, plenty of sports in the summer.

However, the winter severely limited the scope of outdoor events. In the early days there were no buildings dedicated to indoor sporting activities (that is to say, legal sporting activities). The first real structure dedicated to indoor sports was a covered rink situated in the centre of what later became Rotary Park. In other words, the first building in Cranbrook dedicated to indoor winter sports was a building to host outdoor winter sports indoors. Truly Canadian.

Cranbrook did have a bowling alley in place by the winter of 1898. Situated near the Cranbrook Hotel (as was pretty much everything in those days) the ten-pin bowling alley was owned by Mr. Fink and managed by Mr. Love. The place proved popular enough that by early 1899 a shooting gallery and card room were added. More indoor sports, less family nights.

Ice brought the people out. There was more water floating overland around Cranbrook in those days. All the nearby lakes and ponds, the alkali, the sloughs (there were a lot of sloughs) fed by Jim Smith Creek, Hospital Creek, and St. Joseph's Creek of course, a wondrous ribbon of ice with nothing more than an occasional bridge to rattle your brain on a dark night. Young and old, short and tall, male and female, ice was the great winter equalizer. The poor may glide like royalty while the rich may fall flat on their wallets. Ice for skating, ice for hockey, ice for curling, ice roads for the lumbermen, frozen lakes to slide the ore, ice for ice - thousands of tons saved for use in the summer,. And not to mention the outdoor rinks, generally in the block between 7th and 8th Ave. and 1st and 2nd St., across from the Methodist Church, kitty-corner to Chinatown, behind the livery stables. Five or ten cents to skate all day, hot drinks, by 1900 electric lights at night, sometimes even change rooms and music from the city band, and always big metal barrels to warm your hands and big memories to warm your heart.

Next Week: Lines appear upon the tangible nectar of the Gods of Shinny