We’ve had quite a winter this year, with record-breaking snowstorms closing campus not once, but twice. But winter rarely puts a damper on Trinity’s spirit. Read on to learn how Trinity has embraced winters past.

This winter’s record-breaking snowstorms recall one of Toronto’s most memorable winters. In January, 1999, the city accumulated more than 105 centimeters of snow in a period of just two weeks. Some might remember that the Canadian army was even called in, an episode that briefly made Toronto the subject of mirth across the country. But there’s little evidence that the towering snow drifts slowed life at Trinity. If anything, they seemed to heighten the fun. A January 1999 issue of Salterrae preserved in the Archives captured the jolly mood on campus with the headline: “Trinity parties through the storms.” The writer of the article went so far as to declare that “after the birth of Bishop Strachan and the incorporation of Molson Breweries in Canada, this snowstorm is the greatest thing that has ever happened to Trinity College,” before going to recount a raucous Lit debate followed by a pajama party complete with dance floor. Not bad for an evening spent snowbound, indoors.

Trinity’s Archives take us back even further. In December, 1944, Toronto was struck by another memorable blizzard, one that dropped a staggering 57.2 centimeters of snow in a single day – a record only surpassed this winter. Curiously, Trinity’s student publications from the time make no direct mention of the storm itself. But one wonders if the storm did leave its mark in other ways, as the December 1944 edition of the Trinity University Review featured not one, but two charming poems devoted to snow. One author strikes a cheerful note, concluding her verse with a resolve to learn to ski. The other adopts a more wistful tone, ending with the lines, “Eternal beauty in suspension now lies / While earth now slumbers deep. There are no dead / But only souls who from their sleep might wake / Were not this hush of heaven soon to break.” Read in the context of wartime, one senses a longing for a  peace beyond just the stillness of winter. Yet there is hope here too, that the world can made anew.

The Trinity University Review, Christmas 1944, Vol. LVII, No. 3

Trinity, too, can feel like a different place when it has been transformed by a fresh blanket of snow. Whatever the era, when the snow settles on campus, it’s hard not to be charmed all over again by our picturesque surroundings. With this in mind, here are some photos from our collections of Trinity in its winter finery over the years for you to enjoy. No snow shovel required.