Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
These are the first few words of one of Quebec’s best-loved songs by chansonnier Gilles Vigneault. “My country is not a country, it’s the winter”- but it sounds much more poetic in French and for Quebeckers these words really evoke the sense of isolation created by Quebec’s fierce winter storms. They also evoke the different ways in which l’hiver has shaped our psyche – and in some circles l’hiver is even a metaphor for our sense of distinctiveness from the rest of Canada. So in Quebec, winter is more than a word – it’s a notion that’s at once seasonal and political!
