When spring finally arrives in Winnipeg, the residents have a tendency to believe that they have earned it. After enduring six months of snow and numbing cold, a winter more fierce than that experienced by the inhabitants of almost any other city on earth, they emerge like shell-shocked soldiers from trench warfare. They stumble into April, a month of melting snow, thawing rivers, oozing mud, and hopeful signs. Snow gives way to rain. Migrating birds appear on the rivers. The trees swell in anticipation of new leaves. The first crocuses appear above the earth. And the lifeless bodies of...