The first steps back out to the ice

It’s not that I didn’t spend days and nights out on frozen lakes in the Yukon for the last 3 winters, because I did, and they were magical. I miss so much about the Yukon every single day

But what it is, is just how vividly I remember April 6th 2022 here before I moved away.

It was one of my last nights in Yellowknife, and it was a magical night out on Prelude Lake, still so frozen, and I remember the gut wrenching feeling I had about leaving all of this. It was an anxiety and a heartbreak. The aurora was so special that night and I was so scared about leaving it, and about leaving the frozen lakes and the ice roads. It was, ironically, the extreme cold that gave me so much comfort.

So when a couple nights ago I took my first steps back out onto a frozen lake for the first time, I felt a happiness and fulfillment that I was missing for so long. There is a magic in the frozen lakes here, and all night I ran back and forth through deep snow between the lake and the car feeling those moments of total freedom and perfection. The entire landscape around was a frozen wonderland, ice crystals and snow covering everything, and the aurora endlessly breathtaking.

It’s winter. It’s finally really, really winter.