If you were ever going to rank oxymorons in terms of relevance, “Canadian summer” would be at the top of your list.

Everyone knows that Canadian winters are cold. It’s not uncommon to see your breath turn into ice the moment it leaves your mouth. Cold and Canada are synonymous, everyone knows that. However, what you may not know about Canada is that summers there last about 10 minutes. Depending on what part of the country you’re looking at, sometimes if you blink for too long, you’ll miss the entire season.

A good way to spot a Canadian is to tell them that summer lasts three months. If they instantly turn into a confused, stuttering mess, you’ll know that they are a Canadian.

In Canada summer realistically lasts about a month. And that’s in a good year. This year Toronto had about one week of summer weather. It’s hot during the summer, but the heat doesn’t normally last long enough to give the average Canadian a chance to climb out of the three parkas they’ve been wearing for the last eleven months.

However, don’t think that the short summer means there is nine months of spring and fall either, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Fall and spring don’t exist in Canada. They are simply called “early winter” and “late winter.” In these two seasons it’s still cold, just not cold enough to build an igloo in the middle of a downtown street. It is however cold enough that vistors to Canada think Canadians live in some weird hemisphere and that winter takes place at during different months there.

Winter in Canada, as has already been discussed, is cold enough that only the heartiest Canadians survive it each year. Bagged milk has been known to freeze solid for several months and beavers relocate their dams into the local Tim Hortons during the winter months.

In case you’re wondering, summer in Canada is already over.