Tales of the beautiful everyday from the North
Waiting on cloud
Tied hands
Night after night, the situation was very much the same, but different. I spent my days checking in on satellite images, anticipating the timing of clear skies pushing out clouds from the north, of clear skies beaten eaten up by clouds moving in from the west. It was all a mess, but somewhat orderly.
These nights weren’t about just chasing clear breaks. These nights were about waiting on much bigger weather systems to move through, for better when clear sky was pushing out overcast cloud, and for worse when incoming cloud chased us to the end of the highway. But on all three nights, we couldn’t have asked for better timing. When we had positioned ourselves as close to the end of a cloud bank as the roads would allow us, the aurora was later than usual and allowed us to enjoy it from totally clear sky. And when we had hoped for an earlier night to beat to the cloud, the aurora was there then too.
These nights are very much the meditative kinds of nights, that feel a little bit magical reflecting on everything coming together in perfect time.
The best hours
As I sit here today to write this post, the temperature outside is just -13°. It’s a welcome break for my car and for my home, my fingers and face too. Usually these warm swings in the middle of winter are accompanied by a lot of cloud, and in this case about 10cm of fresh snow, but that’s all a problem for later.
So many of our nights recently have been into the -30s with mostly clear skies. They’ve taken us out into some of my favourite areas of the countryside through familiar ice roads. The hours on these lakes have felt calming and meditative. They are my favourite times of my days - a little bit removed from the business part of all this having to be a business.
A little more Icelandic weather induced chaos
The beginning of the night was all a little bit of a panic. A passing cloud bank was just leaving us, and the aurora was already teasing us. We found somewhere to pull over quickly, and by 10pm, we were already under what would be the most beautiful aurora of the night.
When we had moved further into the countryside later in the night and out onto a frozen lake, no time was wasted getting reacquainted with the Icelandic winds still present from the night earlier. The ice roads were a mess. Snow drifts reached far and wide, and my already low to the ground Toyota Sienna did, by design, a little bit of light snow plowing to further us from shore.
The wind once again went right through my toque, numbing my forehead, and I tried not to face the wind head on for too long. We often took cover in the car, but it was hard to resist the dead quiet of the frozen lake with just the soft idling of the car muffled by the wind howling around my hood.
The nights that pass too fast
The aurora was quiet, still gentle, when we arrived out onto our frozen lake for the night, but that quiet wouldn’t be for long.
Clouds were threatening from the west, but this was still far from an immediate concern.
Inside, I was already the happiest. Frozen lakes, ice roads, and the aurora. Everything I so feared losing forever back in April 2022, I had again, and the comfort and homeyness of the ice singing below us all night was something I’m not sure anyone else could ever understand.
I felt reconnected with a love that I discovered and felt grow with every year in Yellowknife. But it was more than just the ice, it was the shorelines, the tree lines, and as close as we have to mountainscapes here, and then the virtual ease with which the aurora just danced above all of that. It’s really the magic of Yellowknife, and this night felt like full circle from that one night in particular back in April of 2022 just before I moved away that produced so much heartbreak.
Returning after 10 years
It was a breathtaking night, really truly breathtaking.
We waited many hours through quiet conditions and cold, but not extremely uncomfortable, temperatures. We were just barely into the -30s, which we’ve been for weeks now, and I’m well adjusted after my yearly fall anxiety about winter winter.
It’s so difficult sometimes to write about nights like this.
There’s a gentle contentment but overwhelming perfection here. It’s in the company of my guests who returned after their first visit 10 years earlier, a quiet location away from everyone else, so much patience and then this beautiful show all around us of colour and movement that you cannot imagine until you are under it.
