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In late spring 1956, a sudden heat wave swept across southern Ontario. On June 12, record temperatures of 94 degrees Fahrenheit were linked to four fatal heart attacks. In Cooksville, a court session ended early because of the unbearable heat, while magistrates in Toronto elected to remove their gowns to continue hearing cases. Three days later, as the heat wave’s end was nigh, the Globe and Mail reported on “two freak dust storms,” which “kicked up black clouds and whipped winds to miniature cyclone force” in Dundas and Ancaster. Meanwhile, a wildcat strike broke out at the CBC in response to “intolerable conditions inside, where the temperature rose to 90 degrees,” and fifty-five forest fires raged in the northern part of the province. Two weeks earlier, there had been a frost warning.

The 1950s saw heat waves across the continent, along with a marked increase in the sale of...