The season's doing what it does best, makin' us drag boots and testing our patience. Each errand feels like a challenge. Winter has a way of grinding you down slowly with the cumulative weight of cold mornings and dark evenings (even if the sun is setting after 5 p.m., slowly by surely, inch by inch).

But hope, dear readers, arrived in the form of a sleepy marsupial this past week! Fred la Marmotte, carried out of his cabin in Val-d’Espoir like a prophecy had rolls of fat, declared an early spring! Montreal was busy shivering through a -27°C wind chill, but hey, we'll take it.

It's almost like the city's responding this weekend, very much alive on dance floors, in galleries, inside igloos, through underground marathons, and around tables piled with food.

The season's doing what it does best, makin' us drag boots and testing our patience. Each errand feels like a challenge. Winter has a way of grinding you down slowly with the cumulative weight of cold mornings and dark evenings (even if the sun is setting after 5 p.m., slowly by surely, inch by inch).

But hope, dear readers, arrived in the form of a sleepy marsupial this past week! Fred la Marmotte, carried out of his cabin in Val-d’Espoir like a prophecy had rolls of fat, declared an early spring! Montreal was busy shivering through a -27°C wind chill, but hey, we'll take it.

It's almost like the city's responding this weekend, very much alive on dance floors, in galleries, inside igloos, through underground marathons, and around tables piled with food.