I live in the great white north, where polar bears reportedly roam the city streets and we are all supposed to commute by dogsled alongside the caribou herds.

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While the truth may be slightly more mundane and a great deal less dangerous, most of the country I call home is generally snowy and damned cold at this time of year. Not so my little corner of the west coast, where we consider winter to be a 4 week inconvenience where frost is considered a lovely but rare natural phenomena and actual snow causes widespread panic.

We have just come out of two weeks of unseasonably warm weather thanks to something called the “pineapple express” blowing in warm, wet air from the tropic of Hawaii. Over the last few days frost has reappeared, the wind blows cold and we have officially hit “winter.” And that’s where things got interesting, at least fashionwise.

In the past few days I’ve noticed that the local population has a wide definition of what exactly is “winter garb.” Oh sure, there were plenty of well dressed ladies taking to the streets in stylish boots and jackets, scarves knotted and draped artfully around their fashionable shoulders, there were a few business men with dapper wool jackets over their suits, but for the rest? It was a chaotic whirl of haphazardry. (Yes, I know that’s not a word, work with me here.)

One young miss I spotted at an intersection was sporting a faux fur abomination of a hat that had actual ear flaps. Given that she was a slender creature, I thought for a moment perhaps it was because she was feeling the cold far too much, but then I realized that along with the fuzzy hat from hell, she had chosen to wear a mini skirt. To the bus stop. The combination of this ensemble was enough to make me fear less for her core body temperature and more for her mental stability. It certainly ensured she stood out among the others waiting, all dressed in near identical outfits of hoodies, jeans and the occasional toque.

A few blocks later I was met with her exactly opposite; a woman so bundled up in her parka, fuzzy boots, toque, scarf and mittens it was only by the flash of lipstick on her mouth I could identify her gender at all. It may be winter, but this is still the west coast, and that means the temperature is still above freezing. This woman’s outfit would have kept her toasty warm in Winnipeg during a blizzard. Thinking I had seen it all now, I was entirely unprepared for the sight that met me just before I arrived at work. Long hair blowing free in the winter wind, tennis shoes a bright and cheery shade of lime green, bare legs covered to the knee by fuzzy socks, and a sundress. Yes, a sundress. The skirt billowing in the breeze and the short sleeves uncovered by anything save a sense of what I can only assume was extreme optimism. She made me shiver just looking at her from the inside of my nicely heated vehicle.

Perhaps we need a collective lesson in how to dress for the weather here in the Canadian version of the tropics. We don’t seem to be hitting the mark on our own. The truth lies somewhere between the parka and the sundress.