In winter, many guests at the thermal pool and spa defy gravity, turning their hair into upward-pointing icicles. But climate change, bringing warmer and shorter winters, has already started to weigh on the light celebration of the cold. This year there have been fewer days with the freezing temperatures needed to freeze hair, said Andrew Umbrich, general manager and co-owner of Eclipse Nordic Hot Springs.
“Unfortunately, the contest is very weather dependent,” he told The Washington Post. “Each year we grow a little more, with 288 submissions in 2020 being our peak. This year we had less than 100, and that was due to lack of cold weather, not lack of enthusiasm.
Turns out there’s a science to making wisps of hair look like frosted ramen noodles. Participants dive their heads underwater, emerge into the frigid air, then employ their creativity in style updates that vary in appearance from crazy spikes to tangled mops. Some have help from friends, while others fly solo. Once done, participants ring a bell to ask a staff member to take their photo.
“Sometimes people see the photos and think, ‘Oh, those crazy Canadians in the freezing water freezing their hair,'” Umbrich said. “But it’s important to stress that this is done from the heat of a hot spring – even if it’s freezing outside. »
The hot spring water is around 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) at this time of year. The outside temperature needs to drop to at least -20 degrees Celsius (or -4 degrees Fahrenheit) — the “magic number,” Umbrich said, that allows hair to freeze in minutes and stay icy. If it’s warmer, the steam from the hot spring can melt the frost off someone’s hair.
And that’s why this winter, one of the warmest on record since parts of Canada — wasn’t exactly the best for a contest synonymous with subarctic temperatures.
In Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon, November brought a period of warm weather delay icy conditions necessary for ice fishing, snowmobiling and ice skating. Then in January, a heat period brought some slushy snow and out of season rain. And while a particularly warm winter or heatwave can’t necessarily be explained by climate change, it does follow a trend of rising temperatures that causes Canada to warm disproportionately, said Blair Feltmate, director from the Intact Center on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo.
“The way I describe it is kind of like a baseball player who went on steroids and all of a sudden this baseball player starts hitting five times as many home runs,” Feltmate said. “We can’t see that any particular home run is due to the steroids. But if he hits five times as many home runs when he’s on steroids, you can pretty much say the steroids are having an impact.
“In fact, what we have with climate change is weather on steroids, causing extreme weather events,” he added.
Canada has been identified as one of the countries where things are getting hotter – and faster — than in other places. Yet the pace of temperature rise differs from region to region. Southern Canada is warming at twice the rate of the global average, while the north, where the Yukon is located, has temperatures that are rising three times the global average, Feltmate said.
The dissonance between regions is the consequence of two forces that are changing weather patterns in northern Canada: melting permafrost, which releases heat-trapping methane, and loss of ice in the Arctic.
“It’s a positive feedback loop where the more snow and ice you lose, the warmer it gets, and the warmer it gets, the more snow and ice melts,” Feltmate explained.
For the Yukon and the rest of Canada’s North, this could mean warmer and wetter winters in the future, hampering some of the region’s fun winter activities.
“We often think of the worst effects of climate change, like hurricanes, wildfires, extreme weather events, heat waves that lead to deaths,” Feltmate said. “And even though the loss of these recreational activities might not be devastating, when you add them all up, it really has an impact. This is why it is so important that we realize that we have to act.
At the thermal pool, this year’s mild winter – which would generally be cause for relief – has people hoping for colder years to come.
“It’s like being between a rock and a hard place,” said Adam White, marketing manager at Eclipse Nordic Hot Springs. “In reality, this winter has been easier for us for our personal lives. But it’s the only place in the world with this contest, and it’s something that really alleviates the harsh, dark winters we have here in the north.
Still, White said contestants around the world injected their crazy hairstyles with “tons and tons of creativity” this year. The winners in five categories – best female, best male, best group, best facial hair and most creative – will be announced next week. Afterwards, the vote for “People’s Choice” will open online so that everyone can choose their favorite frosty ‘do’. The winners in each category will receive a prize of 2,000 Canadian dollars, or approximately $1,456.
And for those wondering: No, there has never been a hair-raising incident.
“We actually consulted hairdressers, and it’s not bad for the hair,” White said. “Basically, as soon as people have their picture taken, they just stick their heads under the hot springs and then it’s completely melted. »
