It's raining again, might as well dance

As the so-called Pineapple Express drenches the We(s)t Coast this week, I am reminded about a famous quip by American literary icon Mark Twain. He famously said, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

Surely people do love to chat about the movement of clouds, the ups and downs of daily temperature, and the comings and goings of the seasons, but my research shows that they are as equally keen on doing something about it.

It's true that people don't commonly dance for rain anymore, but dancing -- or at least moving about -- is far from being an unusual response to undesirable weather. People certainly move in a variety of ways to find an ideal place that is blessed by ideal weather.

Through my research on regional culture connected to weather in British Columbia, I find that people travel or relocate across regions to seek out just the right amount of cloud, sun, rain and snow. Thus I am learning that weather matters enough to people that they don't just look to the sky, but they actually move with it.

It has long been known that Victoria and the Gulf Islands are favourite snowbird destinations for Canadians. And many among our homeless find refuge in Victoria's mere 142 days of yearly precipitation, and equally cozy with an average of 608 millimetres of rain a year.

But Victoria's mild temperatures and regularly partly sunny days aren't just for newlyweds, nearly dead or underfed -- as the crude, but often repeated, adage goes.

Even among the young and the middle classes, moving to Victoria can mean escaping the dreary winter found in Vancouver's consistently grey skies -- as a 26-year-old interview participant put it.

"Not to mention that Victoria's rain is milder and people know how to move around the city better when it rains. In Vancouver you get poked by umbrellas, here you put a hood on and go for a walk along the waterfront. Nobody carries umbrellas on the Island unless they're from the mainland."

At 1,199 millimetres of rain over an average of 166 days of precipitation annually, Vancouver is actually in the middle of the pack of B.C.'s wettest coastal destinations.

If you really want rain -- and surely there are many more rain lovers out there than weather forecasters would have us believe -- you only need to go up the coast.

With 2,594 millimetres of rain and 240 days of annual precipitation Prince Rupert is so grey and overcast that Jesse, a 54-year-old former resident of sunny Kelowna, not only calls it home, but calls it a refuge.

Because he suffers from porphyria, which is a violent allergic reaction to the sun, "... moving here meant that I could be mostly safe, even during summer," he said.

A hop and a long skip across the Hecate Strait lies one of the world's wettest places: Haida Gwaii. Located on the northwestern-most tip of the archipelago is Langara Island: B.C.'s rainy-day capital, averaging 267 days a year of precipitation.

South of Langara on Graham Island, the hamlet of Tlell has long greeted its visitors with an ominous road sign: "Welcome to sunny Tlell: Not a sky in the cloud."

Graham and Langara island's averages of 1,800 millimetres of rain annually are Florida-like precipitation levels compared to the rainiest places that B.C. has to offer.

Hartley Bay and Ocean Falls, both on the central coast between Bella Coola and Prince Rupert, receive an average of well over 4,500 millimetres of the wet stuff per year.

During my recent fieldwork in Ocean Falls, the self-described home of the rain people, a local resident told me that this small town's biggest tourist appeal is sleeping. According to the person I spoke to, since there's no place in town to get a coffee and no tourist amenities to speak of, this means people come here mostly to sleep.

True enough, I averaged 11 hours of sleep a night plus an afternoon nap while staying there.

Nevertheless, rain can be a tourist draw further south. What was once known as an unlucky weekend out of town is now marketed by weather-savvy Tofino hoteliers as storm-watching season.

As Susan, a 31-year-old from Courtenay told me: "Tofino's rain, when it really wants to get ya, comes at you horizontally. The storms are dramatic: A show of nature that is unparalleled."

Forget the Cirque du Soleil, Tofino has the Cirque de la Pluie.

With its 3,177 millimetres and 216 days of rain a year, Tofino ties with Port Renfrew as the wettest spot on Vancouver Island. Renfrew has more accumulation at 3,306 millimetres, but fewer wet days at 206 a year.

But as another of my interviewees said, "there is nothing like walking on the West Coast Trail on a rainy day. The smells, the sound of your footsteps on the mossy groundcover, the taste of the air as you breathe in, I feel like dancing in the rain," 33-year-old Jennifer told me.

Dancing in the rain, rather than for the rain, seems more fun for this incurable rain lover, too, especially as the Pineapple Express makes its way from Hawaii across an already soggy B.C. coast. What else can we do but dance, move and pull our hoods over our heads even tighter and just keep smiling in the rain.

Phillip Vannini is associate professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Royal Roads University, on the We(s)t shore of Victoria. His research on the regional weather culture of B.C. depends on stories and interviews with B.C. residents. He would love to hear from you. He is at phillip.vannini@royalroads.ca.