ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | JANUARY 1945 | THE CANADIAN COUNTRYMAN
This cartoon first appeared in the January 1945 edition of Canadian Countryman. It depicts Old Man Ontario, the traditional representation of the province, weathering the snows and storms of his age-old nemesis, Old Man Winter. “Cheer up, it won’t be long now!” encourages the captioner with perhaps more than a hint of sarcasm. The cartoon was responding to the exceptionally snowy weather that buffeted Ontario in December, 1944. The snow was especially treacherous in Toronto, which experienced its worst single-day snowfall on December 11. A severe winter storm dropped 48 cm of snow on the city in a single day, and gale-force winds piled it up into large drifts. The storm was so bad that even the critically-important ammunition factories had to close. Tragically, 21 people lost their lives in what remains to this day a record-breaking snow storm for the city.