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Shania Twain is a proud Canadian, sharing stories of her childhood in From This Moment On. That includes one hilarious and “beautifully well-written” poem that would get her and her siblings through the Northern Ontario winters. Here’s what we learned from the “You’re Still the One” country singer. 

Shania Twain is from Ontario, Canada

Shania Twain performs during the 2019 American Music Awards
Shania Twain performs during the 2019 American Music Awards | Jeff Kravitz/AMA2019/FilmMagic for dcp

Before she was the “Queen of Country Pop,” Twain was living in Ontario with her siblings. Her childhood was marked with several musical milestones — one of the first being “music time” in kindergarten. In high school, she picked up the trumpet as her band instrument. 

As she got older, she performed live as a singer and took voice lessons before her first album debuted. The self-titled collection, which premiered in 1993, marked the beginning of Twain’s music career. Still, she sometimes referenced her life in Northern Ontario — and its frigid temperatures. 

Shania Twain shared a ‘beautiful’ (and hilarious) poem about winter in Canada

In her autobiography From This Moment On, Twain detailed more of her childhood in Canada, which included anecdotes of getting her tongue stuck to frozen metal during the winter and going public skating with her two sisters. 

The rink was about 45 minutes from her Proulx Court family house. Even if the temperature dropped before the walk home, all they could do was take a deep breath and “probably mutter… something like ‘it’s cold.'”

“Just recently, my sister emailed me a slightly rawer version of that same sentiment that made me laugh hard,” Twain wrote. “It’s quite a typical thing Canadians would share between friends to help get one another through the long, cold winter with a good sense of humor. I get this poem every winter, and every winter I love rereading it. It’s beautiful-very well written.”

She included the poem “Winter in Canada” in her memoir, which she hoped would bring “comfort” to readers on a cold day: “So appropriate and heartwarming!! / F***! / It’s cold! / The end.”

Twain and her siblings even feared their hair freezing and breaking off. As a result, they sometimes dried their wet locks with a vacuum cleaner — or hung them over the heating vents on the floor. 

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Where does Shania Twain live now?

Twain still sometimes spends time in frigid temperatures, even buying a house of her own outside Ontario, Canada. According to Hello Magazine, she can often be found at her Lake Geneva house in Switzerland. The same website reports she has homes in The Bahamas and Las Vegas.

The artist also spends time touring. Most recently, that includes the Queen of Me tour, promoting the 2023 album and its songs “Giddy Up,” “Waking Up Dreaming,” and “Best Friend.” Now, Twain’s From This Moment On is available at most major book retailers, including Amazon.