Well, I'm glad you guys are enjoying the photos. The original motivation was so that people in very warm places (such as Perth, Australia!
hi stales!) would get an idea of what life is like in the winter here.
Regarding the roof pitch: I agree that our shallow roofs are totally weird. But from what I understand, the snow in St. John's usually melts periodically throughout the winter, so there isn't that much accumulation. These pictures are from last winter (although the snow this year looks pretty much exactly the same), when, much to everyone's surprise, the snow didn't melt at all. Until mid-May. (We actually had flurries in June, but we don't often admit that to mainlanders. You guys are a privileged bunch!) We had problems with the ice build-up on the roof causing leakage by the eaves. Dag and our landlord traipsed around on the roof one day pushing the snow and ice off. And regarding insulation - I think everyone's roof is poorly insulated - we all have crazy icicles hanging off our houses. What a mess!
The traditional Newfoundland house design is known as a "saltbox" house. Here is a link to some photos:
http://www.avalon.nf.ca/~janetmcn/saltboxhouse.html. You can see their roofs have a bit more slope. Another typical design - I don't know what it's called - has just one part to the roof, sloping in only one direction (rather than a peak). And it's usually quite a shallow slope. Looks kind of like half a house.
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