It was the start of a cold spell that this week caused a rail to crack on Edmonton’s transit system, brought a general chill to the prairies and delivered significant, and unaccustomed, snowfall to southern British Columbia.

There was already a fair amount of snow in Edmonton. So heading out of the hotel, I was a bit concerned about whether the trails down in the valley would be passable. But that worry lifted when I came to the dramatic stairway next to the relatively new funicular that runs down to the valley. All of its 156 steps had been thoroughly cleared of snow and ice. Ottawa, where I live, doesn’t even try to clear many outdoor stairways with as few as a half dozen steps and simply chains them off for the winter.

Down in the river valley, every path — and there are many — had been plowed. Again, that’s novel to someone from Ottawa.

None of what I found was random. For the past eight years or so, Edmonton has been rolling out an official strategy to encourage its residents to embrace winter rather than hibernate.

This week, I spoke with Isla Tanaka who is Edmonton’s “winter city planner,” a post she believes no one else holds in the country.