Last week, or maybe the week before it, I read an article called “the death of snow” in a Danish newspaper called weekendavisen. It bluntly stated that we might need to get used to the idea of being the only Scandinavian country without snow, and how it would change our national identity.

This got me thinking about a story from my childhood. My grandparents told me that my great grandfather used to work as a sleigh driver during winters at the end of the nineteenth century. I hadn’t believed them of course, I mean, how could one occupy such a job, where you would only be needed a couple of times each year. I had forgotten the story until I read the article about our dying snow. Now that I was reminded, however, I decided to find out if it was true. It was, it turns out that we used to get so much snow each winter that sleigh driver was a legitimate job title. At least until some time during the past hundred years.

I’m sure we would have replaced sleigh drivers with modern snow machines by now. Only the truth is that there has only been one or two winters in my life, where we’ve even had enough snow for a sleigh ride to be possible.

I’m afraid the death of Danish snow, and, the drying out Europe’s most important river, is only the beginning of our trouble.