>>>>Besides, when you guys say, "It's cold out there - must be 20 degrees" it sounds daft.
>>>
>>>20 degrees, cold? That's still short sleeve t-shirt weather here!
>>
>>T-shirt weather? You wusses! We're skinny-dipping in the sea!
>
>I've recently read an article (in Cyrillic, sorry, no link) about life in Yakutsk. They it's not really cold until it goes below -40 C; below -60C is when it really gets interesting. The common way of suicide is to just get out and sit. They open their windows only for a few weeks in the summer. There's crude oil leaking from a deposit under the lake; they just go out with axes, cut a slab, take it home to melt and use that as fuel.

My dad was born and raised in Northern Saskatchewan. He used to tell us how they would carve steps into the snow to get out of the house, and when he spit it would freeze before it hit the ground. He said these things with such a straight face, that I never really knew whether or not he was kidding.