I do my best to try to warn people that, no really, it gets pretty fucking hot here in the summers, but usually I just get an incredulous expression in response. When I compare recent Toronto temperatures (31 Celcius  / 88 Fahrenheit) to, say, The Bahamas (30 Celcius / 86 Fahrenheit), they just kind of look at me funny, like maybe I’ve been spending too much time in the igloo or something.

It’s a bit warm for May, granted, but not by much.

“Yeah, but it’s not a humid heat like they get on the islands”, is often the next follow-up. Once again, spoken by someone who hasn’t been to Toronto in the summer. No, it really is. It can get as soupy here as it does in Hong Kong or Jamaica. I mean, did you ever wonder how south Asians, East Indians, West Indians, and people from similar countries could manage to live in Toronto if it’s some dreary northern podunk town? That’s because it’s not so foreign to them. In the winter they’re usually a miserable bunch, but in the summer they’re right at home. Right from the horse’s mouth that.

As you can see, the wise people of Yonge-Dundas Square prudently decided to air Bollywood films a couple of nights ago as part of their free summer events. Open air, foreign language, spicy food, crowd, heat, humidity – it was as perfect as could be hoped for. The fact that it was conveniently in the middle of town helped too. :)

Unlike many more southerly cities, however, Toronto goes well below the freezing mark every winter, and as every good Canadian knows, frozen water can be very damaging. It warms and gets into every crevice, then it freezes and makes that crevice much worse. Stones can sometimes literally be split in two, and every spring during the thaw, trees and sides of buildings tend to come down.

As a stout Torontonian you must be prepared to deal with tropical heat, arctic blasts, and all manner of inclement weather in between. In the summer you’re dealing with humidity and heat, in the winter it’s the cold and dryness. In that way, there’s a little flavour there for everyone.

But hey, if you can’t take it you can always move to a more temperate place like Vancouver. Wimp!

So yeah, I think that Toronto owes much of its ethnic flavour to the weather. Everyone has a favourite season, a month or two in which they delight in the weather. No matter how you like it, you’ll get a good dose of it. And everyone has their dark days too, when hibernation would really come in handy.

But in order to be an attractive metropolis to people from all over the world, as we seem to be, our weather needs to also be imported from the edges of the world, as would also seem to be the case.

You know that old illustration that cartographers used to indicate oceanic winds? You know, the old dude with a billowing beard, puffed out cheeks, and a swirl of wind emanating from his puckered lips. That would be, like, the Indian Ocean trade wind, or something?

I think that guy, crossed with an equally antique compass illustration, would make a fine flag for the city of Toronto. There’s really no way to make it less misogynist apart from appending breasts – just smack ‘em on there – so I say don’t worry about it. Plus, if we can find an old illustration with a chick wind, why not? Basically, be aware that while under this flag, you may suddenly find yourself anywhere in the world in a pretty authentic way.

It’s mostly to imply that what you get here is not only the culture of your homeland but also the climate, whether you happened to have lived in unbelievably hot Indonesia or desolately frigid nothern Russia. Okay, maybe not that extreme, but more comfortable. At least for a time.

But anyone who decides to stay here for more than a couple of weeks has to be prepared for a journey of discovery that can sometimes be a little more extreme than they could’ve imagined. More than one Vancouverite I’ve known were aghast when confronted with a Toronto November, a cold winter back home. They were both equally horrified when told that it gets much worse than that. Calgarians laugh at our inability to deal with snow (and they’re probably right to do so), but more than one of them has expressed surprise at the amount of snow we sometimes get.

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to figure out a way to capture atmosphere in photos. I look at some of the old stuff on TCL and remember quite vividly how hot and intense Caribana really was, for example. Proper weather for a festival like that, I’m sure everyone agreed. But aside from the skimpy outfits, you can’t really see the waves of heat rising from the road or see what it’s doing to the poor black albino dude standing at the side watching, partying, melting. Ouch.

Anyhow, wear layers (all weather), and carry a sturdy umbrella. That’s the best I can tell ya. And welcome to Toronto!

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Let me explain using of an illustration. For this you need to think B-I-G.

First envision a fat person, I mean really big; the kind of extended circumference for which the words “morbidly obese” barely scratch the surface; the kind of rotund that results in, basically, a giant ball with tiny projections that were once the appendages.

This person would have fashioned for them a sturdy steel girdle that would encircle their girth and provide a hard outter support for the gelatinous mass underneath.

Now take this person, somehow, to a place on Yonge street just south of Highway 401; some spot on the road with a good decline. This last part is crucial because it is this hill that would impart the required momentum to our gargantuan friend.

With the girdle supporting the ball’s innards (the person would be on their side), all it should need is a good strong push and…see you in the lake!

The momentum gained on the first hill, coupled with the sheer weight of our subject, should be enough to overcome the minor dimples and valleys along Yonge street and land him or her in the sparkling waters of the lake.

This is due to the simple fact that Toronto literally moves downward as it moves south. As you travel in this direction along most of the major city streets, you can see the foundations of buildings growing taller in order to keep the structures level. And it isn’t slight either; most buildings will have an extra three or four feet added to them at their southern end.

As long as our massive abomination continues to roll in a straight line, there should always be more downward hill further along to speed his or her progress.

I suppose this experiment could also work with a giant steel ball or a heavy car. I suppose.

Whether it’s corpulence or giant balls of steel, in Toronto all will roll down as they roll south. When you go downtown, you will really be going down to town. And if you wish to travel down south, you will also be generally correct (it’s a little south-east, really).

Besides this natural wayfinding feature, the city also has a grid layout that can either be hindrance or a real time saver.

Because of the unsightly bulge in the southern end of the city core, a number of the roads that run close to the waterfront have to either veer north or simply end. King and Queen streets, for example, run roughly parallel until they join together at Roncesvalles in the west. As they separate in the eastbound direction, the move further apart and new streets like Adelaide and Richmond rump up the increasing space between them.

So if you’re travelling west and south through the city, don’t bother with the south part. Most streets go south-west already.

I remember working at an ill-fated coffee shop in the base of the Toronto Reference Library many years ago. A gentleman came in and purchased a small cup of coffee, took a sip, instantly ingratiated himself with me by complaining about how weak Canadian coffee was, and then asked directions to the nearest Canadian Tire.

I told him it was just north of us.

“What is it with this north south crap with you Canadians? You all carry a compass or something?”, he half-joked.

“Never eat shredded wheat, biatch!”, I replied.

Well, biatch wasn’t a word at that time; but I wish I’d said that!

(…for those of you who recognized Kirby from the front cover — when I used front covers, you may enjoy this greeting card: http://gaygamer.net/images/kirby.jpg — DO NOT ask how I ended up on that site.)