The notion took root in this recently past cool August, when it rained and drizzled and rained some more.
Then, when a late August frost nipped and noshed on many acres of prairie crops, the notion grew to an inkling.
Finally, when a hailstorm at the end of that unexpectedly cruel month beat down the last vegetables and showy flowers of my garden, the inkling became a wish that only a cruel Mother Nature can deny – the wish for an Indian summer.
The dictionary defines Indian summer thus: a period of unseasonably warm weather in late autumn or early winter; a pleasant or flourishing period toward the end of something; a time of mild, dry, hazy weather … after the first frosts of autumn.
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We’ll take it by any definition, after this summer that never was, as we wait to see what autumn will bring.
In these times of political correctness, would it be more seemly to call it First Nations summer? Aboriginal summer? Native Canadian summer?
Though there are many theories, the term is thought to have originated with white settlers who noticed the weather phenomenon in areas inhabited by North American Indians.
Another school of thought suggests it was named for the season in which Indian tribes did their hunting to stock up for winter.
Whatever the source, the term for most of us conjures its own magic through associations with extended autumns of the past.
Indian summer is associated in my mind with the end of harvest, when the light shines long and golden on the stubble and the cattle are ready to come home from summer pasture. The goldenrod and yarrow wave among other brown grasses. The geese present themselves in the letter V and honk their farewells.
The hay has been put up, the silage piled, the grain binned. There’s no point in weeding, mowing or fighting insects. Even though winter waits in the wings, we can sit back and breathe in the sharp scent of autumn that rides beneath the lingering essence of summer’s last simmer.
Part of Indian summer’s allure is the temptation it presents to acknowledge regrets about things left unrealized or unsaid or unexplored in the season just past.
Band leader Glenn Miller knew the feeling when he recorded the song called Indian Summer:
“You’re the tear that comes after June time’s laughter, you see so many dreams that don’t come true
“Dreams we fashioned when summertime was new…”
