Ah, summer. Here we are once again, drifting along the narrow river that is our summer, rotating languidly in the inflatable dinghies of our relief from the savage winter cold of central Alberta. If we squint our eyes just so, we can pleasantly fail to see the frigid howling banks of this river, that lie within arm's reach on either side, past or future.

We semi-northern Canadians have a unique approach to summer. We are not carefree, like the jovial straw-hat-wearing Jamaicans we see in advertisements for lottery draws and airline seat sales, floral print shirts unbuttoned, dark skin contrasted against white sand, speaking the lazy cadences of that uniquely seductive Caribbean accent.

Nor do we party with the unrestrained joy of Mexicans caricatures seen in American movies, the jubilant young women in white off-the-shoulder tops, the wacky moustache-clad men goofily uttering slapstick Spanish syllables, comically clamped down under grossly exaggerated sombreros.

No, our take on summer is maniacal, rabid, and delirious. We act like a suburban youth who, in his first act of juvenile delinquency, has found credit card left on a store counter and is trying to buy as much as possible before the card is reported.

We know that the credit card of summer will soon be reported lost, and our ability to buy things like green grass, blue sky, whimsical strolls outside without shoes or coat, restaurant patios, outdoor festivals and farmers' markets, bike rides, camping, and the ability to whine about dandelions will end.

We eat summer so ravenously that we risk not truly experiencing that upon which we feast. We focus on the eating and not on the taste. Some of us, though, approach summer in a different way.

There are those who love heat. They do not helplessly let boring and trite weather talk wash over them as an irritating social necessity. Instead, they enthusiastically pontificate about their love of our summer weather. They fail to notice if others are not also dramatically swept away into a blithe dream world by temperatures over thirty-five degrees, and they invariably replace the word "hot" with the word "nice" ("It's really nice out today, about thirty-eight degrees.").

These people believe that there is no limit to the "tanned is attractive" equation. They are white Caucasian people who stroll down Perron Street and Whyte Avenue under the merciless July sun with no hat on, their skin darker than that of their First Nation, Pakistani, and African fellow citizens. They complain about working outside and getting a "farmer tan". They visit tanning "salons" in the middle of summer just in order to "even out their tan" or "just get a good base so they don't burn". They have the same oblivious, suicidal attitude toward skin cancer as smokers have towards the plethora of diseases that result from their addiction.

Of course, there are also people, like myself, of the reverse persuasion. These people seldom leave the house in the summer, cover every inch of their skin in either light cotton or linen clothing, sunscreen, or facial hair, they and wander through summer clad as if hiding under a bizarre, conspicuous disguise.

We northerners who live through snowy winters all have our own ways of coping with the summer months. It is things like this, like our sense of humour, our inclination to apologize when someone bumps into us, and our "eh", that make us beautifully Canadian. Drinking beer advertised across national television by a big corporation capitalizing on the nascent patriotism of a hitherto insecure nationhood does not make us Canadian. So go ahead, eat up summer. Or don't.