Earth Shake

Earthquakes are rare in Canada. I was sitting far from the epicenter in Niagara Falls, Canada when the sofa that I was sitting on started to rumble around. I wondered if some mechanical system of the house was giving up the ghost or if some large piece of machinery was outside my home. When it was over, I did not think about it until the news reports started to come out. For me it was an Earth shake not an earthquake.

This made me reflect on how safe it is to live in Canada. Beyond the dangers of the cold in midwinter, there are few natural things in Canada that will kill you. We have no natural killer bugs (although blackflies in the North may be the manifestation of real vampires) and although we are supposed to have the Muskoka rattler, I have never seen one. We have a temperate climate most of the time and although we do experience tornados they have been rare. However, recently the planet seems to be manifesting the great changes we see in our climate so that even Canada's stable and safe environment is reflecting the changes.