I leave Chinatown and pass through Little India, where people are racing around, showering each other with handfuls of riotous rainbow powders.
“Happy Melting Day!” a sari-sporting woman says. She dabs a bright yellow bindi on my forehead before hefting a Supersoaker filled with pink dye and blasting it off into the crowd.
Dozens of costumed revellers fill the streets around me. Some are wearing homemade projects like my postcard gown, but most of them are recognizable characters. There are Harry Potters casting spells and Chewbaccas growling at snarky Han Solos. There are Cruella de Vils luxuriating in their fur coats and James Bonds drunk out of their minds on vodka martinis. There are Marie Antoinettes and Terry Foxes, Frida Kahlos and Lady Gagas.
And so it is that I eventually walk into Sir Winston Churchill Square, Edmonton’s civic centre, arm in arm with an elderly Chinese-Canadian woman dressed in an Optimus Prime costume. She doesn’t seem to speak English very well but she laughs uproariously whenever I say “What?” She hands me a lime Bacardi Breezer from a compartment inside her costume, then kisses my cheek and tromps off into the mass of people.
I walk across the square, toward the statue of Winston Churchill himself, and see that his stooped figure has been festooned by pink and green crepe streamers. A pigeon wobbles from foot to foot on his head, takes a shit, then keels over as a Katniss Everdeen shoots it with an arrow.
At the statue’s base, someone has used bright pink spraypaint to cross out Churchill’s famous quotation from his World War II Christmas address to the Canadian Parliament:
“We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”
The clever vandal has replaced the words with another quotation:
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
Under the statue’s surly pout, a group of revellers are congregated—mostly small children and their young parents. They’re sitting, nibbling on brownies, watching a trio of drag queens tell stories.
“Who wants to hear about the first Melting Day?” coos the lead queen into her microphone. She’s a fabulous creature in a dress made out of fresh green leaves all stitched together. A hundred children squeal with delight and stretch their hands towards the sky.
“Well,” purrs the lead queen, sweeping her black eyes back and forth across the crowd, “it all started over a hundred years ago, just down the hill from where we are now, on the banks of the river. Who can tell me what happened to the river today?”
“The ice broke!” a hundred voices cry in unison.
“And what does that mean?”
“Spring is here!”
“Ooh you kids are smart! That’s right, and that’s exactly what they thought way back in 1904. Back before Edmonton was even a city. Back when there were only eight thousand people in the whole town. Look around, there are probably more than eight thousand people in Churchill Square right now!”
The wide-eyed kids swivel their necks around, climb up on their parents’ shoulders, and try to count the ever-shifting crowd of Charlie Browns and Beatrix Kiddos and bumblebees.
“Well, all those people were feeling blue after the Long Winter. It was almost as long as this year, and even colder! So when they saw that the ice had broken, they rushed out into the streets and started to celebrate. All their stuffy old prejudices melted away, and everyone—poor and rich, Indigenous and settler, woman and man—came together. And what did they do?”
“They danced!”
“That’s right! Come on, let’s dance!”
The children jump up and start gyrating along to an electropop beat.
“Come on Cherry Poppins! Come on Mary Cone! Show us what you’ve got!”
The two other drag queens—a matronly white governess with a bedazzled umbrella and a fabulous Latina peacock in an extravagantly feathered Carnaval costume—bust into a choreographed number. The lead queen belts out some gay diva anthem and the kids go wild.
When the song is done and the hyperactive, sugar-high kids have calmed as much as possible, the main queen resumes her tale.
“Spring is here! It’s 1904 and we’re partying like never before!”
Suddenly she leans in, frowns, lowers her voice.
“But children! The day is almost over! The ice is almost gone! We’re just going to go back to our boring, humdrum lives tomorrow and forget all about our big special day. Aww…”
She slinks away, and the kids moan in disappointment with her.
“But wait, Magpie,” says Mary Cone, the Carnaval peacock. “Isn’t there someone who can make sure we don’t forget this day?”
“Yeah,” chimes in Cherry Poppins, the prim governess. “Isn’t there someone who keeps the spirit of this special day alive, all throughout the year? Well?” She looks at the kids. “Isn’t there?”
“Yeah!” shout the kids.
“Who?” asks Magpie innocently.
“The Melting Queen!” five hundred people shout in unison.
“Of course!” cries Magpie, smacking her forehead theatrically, “I forgot to tell you about the Melting Queen, and she’s the most important part! Mary, Cherry, why don’t you tell the kids about the Melting Queen?”
Magpie retreats to the back of the stage and her two back-up queens shuffle forward to take up the story.
“Those eight thousand people knew that if they did nothing, then they might forget the true freedom, the happy anarchy they felt on this day,” says Mary Cone.
“So they held a grand council on the riverbank, beneath the sizzling northern lights overhead, which had come to bless them all,” says Cherry Poppins.
“They started arguing about the best way to preserve this special springtime spirit, and soon they weren’t happy anymore, they were mad!” says Mary, turning towards Cherry, shaking her feathers with rage. “They were fighting and dividing back into their old groups, forgetting the merriment of their unity.”
“It looked as though this glorious festival would die, and never come again,” says Cherry, facing down Mary, brandishing her umbrella like a sword. “But then a pure, clean, solitary voice cut through the argument.”
“STOP!”
Everyone’s eyes flash to Magpie, who steps forward between Mary and Cherry. They’re much taller than she is—their shoulders are broad and their chests are wide and their jaws are thick and masculine compared to her strawberry-shaped face—but they give way as she takes command of the scene.
“A woman stepped out of the forest,” says Mary Cone, “clad in a gown of fresh green leaves, with a wreath of wildflowers on her head.”
Cherry Poppins lowers a woven crown, blooming with pink roses, onto Magpie’s head.
“And what was this woman’s name?” she asks.
“May Winter!” scream the kids, mesmerized.
“That’s right,” says Mary Cone. “A woman named Winter saved spring that year, and for every year to come. She’d only arrived in Edmonton a few months before, but already she knew that this was a special place and she wanted to help it thrive. So she said…”
“Let me be your Melting Queen,” declares the goddess in green. “Let me take in this moment in time, preserve this glorious vitality which has vanquished our Long Winter, guard this spirit of spring for a year, until the next Melting Day.”
“And then they watched in awe as the aurora shimmered down from the heavens and May Winter breathed it all in with one deep breath,” says Cherry Poppins.
The leaf-clad queen mimes gulping down the northern lights, the kids copying her.
“From that day forward, Edmonton has never been without a Melting Queen,” says Mary Cone. “She protects us. Nurtures us. Announces when spring has sprung. She’s our eternal mother, our city’s First Lady, and no other city has a woman like her. One hundred and fourteen women have had this honour, from May Winter to Saoirse Beltane, from Organza Grant to Alice Songhua. You can breath
e out now,” she adds, and Magpie and all the kids release their pent-up breath in one big burst.
“And who can be the Melting Queen?” gasps Magpie.
“Any girl who wants!” shout the kids.
“That’s right!” says Magpie. “Whether she’s a grandma or a little girl like some of you, any woman can be Named. All she has to do is put a leaf with her name on it on May Winter’s statue.”
She leans coyly toward the kids and raises her exquisitely plucked eyebrows.
“Maybe I’ll be the Melting Queen this year,” she says.
“Nooooo!” giggle the kids.
“I can’t be the Melting Queen?” she asks with mock outrage.
“Nooooo!” repeat the kids, loving it.
“Why not?” she pouts.
“Cuz you’re a boy!” some of them shout, and Magpie folds her hands over the front of her dress suggestively, a faux-shocked look on her face.
“Who told?”
The kids laugh and the drag queen ruffles haughtily.
“Well I don’t need to be the Melting Queen to have a great party today and to be thankful to May Winter for starting this tradition! And what’s the most fun thing to do on Melting Day?”
“Dance!” shout the kids, and on cue another song kicks off, the drag queens and the children and their parents all jolting along to its spasmodic beat.
Once the drag queens are done performing, the crowd rushes in to take selfies with them and get a lipsticked kiss on the cheek. I watch parents posing their children for photos, and as my eyes flick around the crowd, I notice that Magpie, the lead queen, is staring straight at me. Our eyes lock together. She’s surrounded, but solitary, like a statue. Her giddy performance face has slid off for a moment, and she looks at me with piercing, omniscient intensity—at my wild red hair, at my postcard dress, at my pale thin body, underneath it all. I smile at her, imagining that she’s May Winter reincarnate, come back to wish me bon voyage. Then a little boy with a red cape and a Thor hammer launches himself onto her, and the light in her eyes comes back to full brightness.
I glance at the City Hall clock tower, but of course its hands are waving madly in every direction. Clocks are profane on Melting Day—a tradition that began one year when the ice break-up coincided with Daylight Savings Time and everyone rioted about losing an hour of the festival. Still, I have somewhere I need to be.
Café Fiume is one of the strangest places in Edmonton. Ten years ago, the city decided to replace the one-hundred-year-old Walterdale Bridge with a brand new link across the river. They built the gleaming new structure right alongside the rusting old arches, which were scheduled to be torn down the following summer.
But before the wrecking barges could come to haul away the old girders, the Walterdale Bridge was granted a reprieve. A group called ECHO, the Edmonton Civic Heritage Organization, fought against the city government, halting the demolition by designating the bridge a special historical landmark.
Eventually the city sold the bridge to a private company, set up by the deep-pocketed ECHO board members. They slapped on a bright white coat of paint, tore up the metal bridge deck, and replaced it with six-inch-thick plate glass. A few months later, they opened a restaurant and lounge, ten metres above the ever-flowing waters of the North Saskatchewan River.
When I go through the door, I see that the restaurant is empty except for one patron. He sits at a table at the exact centre of the long dining room, his face buried deep in a menu. As I go to meet him, the solid riverbank gives way beneath my feet. I levitate above a flotilla of icebergs. No matter where I look, I can see the river. The doors and walls and tables and chairs are all made of glass or transparent plastic.
“Hello, Sander.”
He lets the menu drop and looks up. Our eyes widen at the sight of each other. Sander is a naturally small and wiry person, and he’s always thin and gaunt after his long slumber. But this year he seems more cadaverous than ever, drowning in his saggy pyjamas. His fingers are short splintery twigs. His cheeks are sunken and hollow. His black hair is dry and lustreless. He’s half-Korean, but he’s almost as pale as my ginger skin after six months locked away from the sun. His black eyes are rimmed with sleep, but they’re still sharp and bright and intelligent.
I can feel them inspecting my body, taking in my own transformation and my unexpected style, my postcard dress and extravagant hair. He offers me a weary smile as I pull up a chair.
“Hello, Adam,” he says. “You look colourful. Like a Klimt painting.”
“And you look hungry,” I say. He has sauce on his lips and crumbs in his lap.
“I ate some appetizers already,” he admits, nodding to the stack of a dozen licked-clean plates beside him. “And I’ve ordered a few more things. You like shrimp, right?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I used to, but who can say anymore?”
“Did you know that peppermint shrimp are all born male and then become hermaphrodites as they age?” asks Sander idly, chewing on the end of his fork.
Sander Fray is always sharing such facts. A devoted Wikipedian, he spends hours every day reading, researching, writing, and building up his vast hoard of knowledge. He told me once that everything in the world will one day have its own dedicated Wikipedia article, and we will all be both readers and contributors. His contributions have so far involved nearly a thousand pages about Edmonton: geography, architecture, history, you name it. Everything I know about Edmonton I’ve absorbed from him, by a sort of reluctant osmosis.
I met Sander in my first year at the University of Alberta, where he was a TA for my mandatory history class. I went to his office hours to ask him about a paper and he just never stopped emailing me further reference materials. He’s still in the middle of his History PhD, searching interminably for the perfect thesis topic. But since he can only work until the First Snow falls, it’s taking him forever to finish his degree. I have no doubt that he’ll one day be a respected authority on Western Canadian history. Just not in the wintertime.
“So tell me,” he says, knitting his bony fingers together. “What day is it?”
“It’s the 18th of May.”
His eyes already look like two full moons in his emaciated face, but now they swell even wider.
“Is it really? That’s surreal. The latest Melting Day on record is May 2nd, 1942. That was a rough winter, with huge blizzards.”
“There were some storms this year, but mostly it was just really cold. And dark. And long. But now it’s over!”
I grab a dinner roll and rip off a chunk of bread with my teeth. It’s the most delicious and flavourful thing I’ve ever tasted. My appetite is back, and I’m prepared to go head to head with Sander to see who can eat more. I know I’ll lose, but just the fact that I’m excited for a contest makes me smile. Winter is truly over, and I’m done with sulking.
“Well hopefully it doesn’t snow in August again this year,” says Sander. “I can’t afford to lose any more time.”
Now that he’s out of hibernation, Sander only sleeps an hour or so every day. It’s not uncommon to get a 4 a.m. phone call from him, eager to tell me about his latest discovery or ask for my advice with an article. He works at a frenzied pace, all too aware that the First Snow will send him back into slumber.
Sander always wakes up on Melting Day and comes to Café Fiume to reunite with me and our mutual friend Odessa Steps. She spends her winters travelling the world, but she never fails to arrive back in Edmonton on the first day of spring. The three of us live our lives in harmony, diverging on the day of the First Snow and converging again on Melting Day. The Long Winter moves us all differently: She migrates. He hibernates. I endure. But we always come together in the end.
This has been our tradition for many years, and like most traditions it becomes more permanent with every repetition. We meet at noon at Café Fiume. Sander’s always early, Odessa’s always late, and I’m always right on time. As we eat, we share stories of our winters. I hear about Odes
sa’s travels and Sander’s dreams, and I tell them that Edmonton in winter is a harsh place that they’re wise to avoid with travel and with slumber.
But not this year. This year, for once, I have good news.
“Do you like my postcard gown?” I ask Sander. “I made it this morning.”
“I do,” he says. “What inspired you to create this costume? I’ve never seen you dress up for Melting Day before.”
A waiter comes and pours a glass of water for me. Sander orders six more dishes and asks if we can have another basket of complimentary bread.
“I made it because I’m going to visit all these places soon,” I say. “Today is my last day in Edmonton. Melting Day is kind of like my farewell tour.”
“Oh really? That’s so new for you! I always thought you didn’t like travelling.”
“I just never had the chance to before now. But I’m turning over a new leaf, Sander. I’m going to travel the world, just like Odessa. But I’m going to go in the summer and the winter. And, to be honest, I’m not sure if I’ll come back.”
He stops chewing at a hangnail and gapes at me.
“Leave Edmonton? Forever? But you’ll come back for Melting Day, right? Like Odessa does every year. You have to.”
I smile at him. I know it probably makes me a bad person, but I’m kind of enjoying his shock. Adam Truman never would’ve left Edmonton. And in a sense, Adam Truman never will. I’m free from that life now.
“Maybe I’ll come back for Melting Day,” I say. “Or maybe we can start a new tradition. You can wake up and come to the airport and fly and meet Odessa and me in a Tuscan villa or a Mongolian yurt.”
“Where are you going to go first?” asks Sander. “Are you really leaving tomorrow? Did you find an urban planning job somewhere? Or are you just going to travel for the summer and then look for work in the fall? You must’ve just graduated, right?”
The Melting Queen Page 3