Tales from the north
Back to the roots
In a separate tab, I open my blog to check on my last post and manage to surprise myself seeing that it was back at the end of February. I knew it had been a long, long time, but I didn’t think that long.
I also knew when I titled it ‘Closing in’, that it was a subtle lean into what was coming - a somber end to my few years in Whitehorse. At the time I wrote that post, my apartment was under offer, I knew where I was going, but not yet where I would be living, and between those two small life changes, I would be embarking on the trip of a lifetime that never once felt quite real - but more on that next post.
For right now, my days are filled with reacquainting myself with where this life of chasing the northern lights nightly began. I am home again in Yellowknife, exactly 10 years and 2 days from when I moved here the first time, to once again take possession of a home I had not yet actually seen.
With so much to do, we wasted little time and began light renovations the day after I moved in, and it all remains ongoing. Tours begin in August, and I cannot, cannot wait. And finally I’ll lead you out of Whitehorse, through the summer in BC, and finally up to Yellowknife with a chaotic collection of photos.
After moving out of my place in Whitehorse, I spent some weeks with Doris in hers before I would head south for an abbreviated summer. We packed, and repacked every single box I thought I had perfected to all fit into my Sienna to take with me. No moving company this time, just what I could bring with me. But I had too much stuff, and I was too heavy. Moving day was not the best day of my life.
Over the next week and a bit, we opened every single box, re-sorted and repacked them, got rid of a lot (Doris will be eating dried lentils and rice for the next 3 lifetimes), weighed every single box and loose item, and set aside 2 boxes to ship ahead of another Canada Post strike.
All of this set me up full to the car ceiling, exactly 40kg under the car’s maximum takeoff weight, for an early, early morning out of Whitehorse to drive straight-ish through to my mum’s place, some 2,200 kilometres south. But this was not without a cat nap or two along the way as my eyes got heavy, twisting myself over and around boxes and plants to stretch out, time at the Liard Hot Springs, of course, and photography stops too.
Late, late pizza takeaway after move out day
Just completely taking over Doris’s life with my chaos here…
Weight ended up becoming a bigger issue than space
A little tail heavy despite my best efforts…
Driving through the night in northern BC and of course she kept me company
Typical summer views from my mum’s place in Kamloops
The final weeks leading up to departure day for Yellowknife were chaotic in everything from helping move my dad to the Philippines, couriering original (thank you, NWT, for being so relentlessly, painfully archaic - never change), notarized documents to Yellowknife from BC in the midst of another potential Canada Post strike, and making endless design decisions for spaces I had once again not actually seen.
With our final days planned and our departure from Kamloops sured up, we first spent some nights in Calgary with my grandparents, making final final decisions on design with trips to Home Depot and IKEA, but most importantly, bean bag toss tournaments in the backyard.
From there, just 1,800 kilometres and one overnight in smoky northern Alberta was between us and Yellowknife.
Smoky morning leaving High Level
Christmas in June…
So this is about where things stand. 70L of white eggshell paint down, 3 major appliances unexpectedly replaced, many IKEA orders received, more still on the way, and the main bathroom 2/3 gutted but on it’s way back, with the ensuite mostly finished, and a few closets gutted and redone.
When my dad asked how it feels to be back in Yellowknife, I said I wasn’t really sure because I haven’t actually really interacted at all with Yellowknife yet. I’ve barely been outside for more than repeating trips to Home Hardware and Canadian Tire.
But I am settling in, sleeping more than 5 hours a night finally, and taking time to breathe and practice yoga, of course. Sparrows, yellow warblers, and robins sing outside my windows all day, a neighbourhood cat wanders into my yard at breakfast for cuddles, and both the front and back steps make for perfect afternoon fika spots.
My first tour is already only about a month away, and I can’t wait for that, but all of this time since closing day in Whitehorse on March 28th has passed far, far too quickly. For now, time could not slow down enough, but this evening I’ll prepare for my new dishwasher that I should be wrestling into my place sometime tomorrow, while the rest of the bathroom walls upstairs are calling for the tiling to continue…
The journey north begins with a single pothole
526 kilometres to Dawson City, and probably, honestly, at least 526 potholes. I have made 2,500km drives down to Vancouver that felt shorter. This wasn’t my favourite drive, but the highway views of endless rolling mountains and frosted forests were beautiful and cleansing of the near constant pothole swerving, and frost-heaves-out-of-nowhere anxieties.
A couple weeks ago, we spent a few days up in Dawson, wandering the wooden sidewalks, gorgeous forest trails, and breathtaking vistas from up above the city. It was a quiet little retreat filled with curiosity and the cosiest evenings of dinners in atmospheric little hole in the wall restaurants, and card games, snacks and tea back at our hotel on snowy nights.
It never leaves you
“I think sometimes you don’t know what a place is to you until you have to leave it.”
A completely new to me part of the Yukon, and truly I could not believe what we stumbled into. It was like some sort of mystical fairyland cross of Iceland’s Thingvellir National Park, West Fjords and Norway’s coast, but all less than 200km from my door.
This sense of overwhelming, full body, cute rage kind of exhilaration, amazement and disbelief isn’t something I have felt maybe ever. I think sometimes you don’t know what a place is to you until you have to leave it, and then you long for it every day since you’ve left.
As often as I joke about on road trips pulling over every 100m for the changing scenery, this was our reality here. Paralyzed by a complete inability to progress beyond where we were without first combing over every moss and berry covered rock, admiring the little lakes and streams that have formed in every crevice. Peeking over one ridge led to the next and the next and before I knew it, I was far from the car. I lived in a place between wanting to stay forever, but explore further. These days passed much too quickly, but of course we will be back soon again.
Fresh snow and fall colours
One last trip out to Kluane before the rest of September fills out with almost nightly aurora chases. It’s my busiest month since 2020, and I’m so thankful for that, but you won’t find me pretending it’s not really hard.
The one thing I’ve wanted more than anything in the world since about March 21st, 2020 - a day after the Northwest Territories locked down for what ended up being almost 2 full years, was security and safety. And the one place you won’t find safety and security, is in a small, tourism sole proprietorship. But I love it. I did before 2020, in all my naivety, and I still do love it today too, but it’s definitely different. I’ve been in and out, searching for day jobs, desk jobs, where everything in my life changes in favour of that security and safety, but for right now, I still carry on here. It’s not that I don’t love this, in fact I probably appreciate it more than I ever have, in a place that’s more beautiful than anywhere I’ve ever lived, but sometimes things just change.
“Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”
After a summer of successfully nurturing a pathetic few blades of grass into a now small green oasis in an otherwise sandy construction zone outside my apartment, yellows and reds continue to spring up everywhere around us. All over the mountains, shadows dance revealing entire fields of beautiful fall colour. Clouds lift from the mountain peaks outside of my windows, showing fresh snow that lasts the day or maybe two. It’s magical, and I wish I had more time for intimate nature bathing, all day, every day, but these little moments every day noticing those new patches of yellow, hillsides of red, and peaks with new snow are enough to let out some heavy beauty sighs, and I love that. I really love that a lot.
Weeks of strong contrasts
The warmth of the spring sun cannot be mistaken now, but still the cold wind cannot be either. A time of contrasts continue on - long, long days with the most magnificent sunshine and car washing temperatures while brief dark and cool nights fill with the aurora still.
Swan Haven, my favourite Yukon discovery last spring, is home once again to some 1,000+ tundra and trumpeter swans. Their numbers are on the decline now as they move on for the further north. The shore ice is decreasing every day out there, and everywhere else.
Some kilometres further south, moose nibble buds off branches and play in open fields buried under 40cm of snow. On mountain sides everywhere, the south facing slopes are void of any snow or signs of winter while the north facing sides still look like they are stuck in February.
Down in Carcross, it was the final few days of quiet before the cruise ships begin their returns to Skagway at the end of April.
And back at home, I have my first light sunburn of the year and increasing numbers of freckles on my face from morning coffee in the sun on my balcony. The gravel trucks seem to make endless passes on the streets nearby to sweep up the last of winter, and that makes 10pm sunset roller blades through the paths around the neighbourhood just so perfect.
