Trail of forgotten clothing leading back to who?
Kirsten Murphy
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Feb 02/01) - They're everywhere. Single mitts, boots and scarves sparingly spaced along sidewalks. Hats without a home.
These forgotten winter casualties symbolize our ability to dress, de-robe and move on.
"I use idiot strings," volunteered a retail shopkeeper.
The string-through- the-coat system works wonders, she says.
"When you have a good pair of gloves, you don't want to lose them."
Parking metres, where people tuck their winter wear into pockets and arm pits, are common drop-off points.
The alarming trend is perhaps a symptom of complacency. Dryers swallowing socks is so commonplace that orphaned items are easily forgotten.
Are we losing all sense of responsibility and memory?
Not likely, says Andy Langford, psychology instructor at Aurora College.
A more plausible explanation -- but still a stretch he insists -- are the demands placed on our sleep schedules.
Unlike people living around the Equator, Northern residents face extreme exposure to darkness and sunlight.
The variance, in turn, affects our circadian rhythms -- the body's internal 24-hour clock -- which regulates sleep patterns.
"The biggest adjustments are mid-summer or mid-winter," Langford says.
"People can become fatigued and irritable if they're not sleeping well, which could effect memory."
Which may explain the number of absent-minded people depositing items throughout the city.
Suggesting Yellowknife differs from other capital cities lacks merit.
"I've seen articles of clothing on downtown Toronto streets and I wonder how can a person lose a shoe, but they do," Langford says.
Where the mystery clothing ends up is equally puzzling. The city's public works department has no official policy or tabulation of items getting scooped up during snow clearing.
Even if boots and gloves were collected, where would they go?
The Salvation Army's second-hand clothing store traditionally peddles in pairs: one is not enough.
