Tales of the beautiful everyday from the North
Guilty footsteps and repeating tire tracks
I had finally returned to Kusawa Lake for the first time since freeze up, and I was the first footprints out onto this pristine snow covered ice. A light guilt passed over me, not wanting to spoil any photos or such an undisturbed view with my footprints, as distinctively humble as the mukluk prints are. The step from the shore onto the lake was obvious to a good ear. The sound of the ice underneath my boot changed dramatically.
“It was the perfect, untouched winter landscape I would dream forever of.”
For the next couple of weeks, it seemed like I couldn’t make a decision that didn’t involve Kusawa Lake. Pristine, windswept snow was everywhere. It was the perfect, untouched winter landscape I would dream forever of.
It was the right place, on the right day, at the right time, so many times.
The true silence out here made time feel like it had stopped moving, and then I’d look at the clouds just a few hundred metres above fly by so quickly while the sunlight climbed the hills so slowly. The water still flowed effortlessly down the river while on the surface so much was completely frozen.
“There is no beauty like that of nature during the depth of winter. It is a world of extremes.”
On a night that demanded a lot of kilometres, and more trust in weather maps and weather patterns than I had experience of, we once again settled back around Kusawa Lake. The wind was fierce, but strangely comfortable at just -2°. Snow blew up in clouds across the highway and trees swayed violently in the forest. Pullout after pullout - cloud.
Still we had to wait for the clear skies to become reachable for us, but once they did, we were there and the stars and a few faint arcs of aurora in such a dramatic environment were worth all the trouble a thousandfold.
A needed retreat
It’s the dead of winter, and for weeks our nights lingered in the -20s, -30s, and -40s. It was the frozen lake, steaming river, dry snow crunch under my mukluks kind of winter that just makes my heart feel so free.
The aurora rose over mountain ranges and danced around the sky until all hours of the morning. Clouds moved in and passed quickly. Getting back home to bed at 5am was becoming a regular occurrence and I would wake before sunrise at 11am with heavy eyes but a full heart. It’s the best feeling kind of life and a needed retreat back into my life of old.
More recently, the temperatures have warmed and brought more cloudy skies but the chase into the countryside, during the days and the nights, for beautiful light continues on.
The magic valley revival
Thousands of kilometres away now, but the little magic valley in Yellowknife meant a lot to me. For years, it was a retreat in both daylight and under the stars. It was a quiet, cosy valley I could just hide away in. It reminded me of Norway, as much as Yellowknife could, and I think that was an important recharge for me.
"I think that was an important recharge for me."
On the last morning of showings for my then-home, and subsequently the day I sold it, I spent some hours there in this magical winter light. It’s still one of my best memories.
And then, more than half a year later, I stumble into my very own magic valley here. It was all the comfort, security, and nostalgia of Yellowknife, but Norway too, just even more special.
On this afternoon, I couldn’t stop watching in amazement of the shadows playing on the mountain sides. Chasing the light and the water up the valley just yielded more and more absolutely surreal beauty. Every moment needed another photograph. And how the light moved up to the peaks of the mountain ridges until it was all finally gone was just so beautiful. It was slow but still so fast.
Just so
Checking in on the auroral conditions a little later that night after dinner revealed far too perfect of an opportunity, despite being so exhausted, to stay home.
There was really just one choice of course, and it was to back track south once again to the magic valley. It was in so many ways just what I had been dreaming of for years. And now it gets to be my every day. That is magic.
The heart of the aurora chase
The optimistic realist
I always want to see the aurora, I just love seeing her. Every night. I want to see those most amazing displays. I love the colours, I love the movement and the scale of the aurora. It’s never the same, and it is never assured - not at any intensity, not for any duration. You cannot rely on the weather to be perfect, or the forecasting to be perfect. Maybe the clear sky on the map has passed or changed already from the information we can see.
In any moment, there can be endless decisions to make. That uncertainty forces you to slow down and to be in the present moment.
"For me, chasing the aurora is not about waiting on any one perfect night. It's about everything else around it as well. It's driving for hours, spending time in nature, and just being in that raw environment. It's just different from anything else."
So on a night where I’ve planned to leave very late to try to align as best as possible into challenging aurora conditions and challenging weather conditions, I feel an almost heightened sensitivity to everything else that is around the aurora chase as well.
Feeling the gusts of winds on the car across open sections of highway, scanning the sides of the highways for elk and all others, and keeping an eye for any stars demands that kind of heightened sensitivity. It is a stress, but it’s also a beautiful, unique awareness in a life that is a far cry from ordinary.
Leaving town, low cloud persisted for more than 150 kilometres with intermittent rain storms hitting us all along the way to an area I thought we might have a chance.
Every so often we’d stop, stretch our legs, breathe the sweet forest air at highway pull-outs and look up for any stars. There were still only raindrops and almost painful gusts of wind.
Then after many kilometres more, a few stars broke through small holes in the clouds until the sky became more stars than clouds. At first, the aurora was gentle, barely visible with the naked eye. Hours passed, and in the end it was the exact experience I love the most with the aurora. It was like the really good old, old days from Norway. Mountains, volatile weather, a successful chase, and the most beautiful aurora and happy feeling deep inside that almost couldn’t be contained.
Hitting the ground crawling
Exhausted and almost home
My first night in Whitehorse at a lodge outside the city, the day before I would close on my apartment, was a great opportunity to see the aurora. One thing I did know about the aurora in Whitehorse, from simple math and physics (there’s no such thing), is that the peak time would typically be very, very late. And I was far too exhausted trying to tie together everything needed to close on my apartment the next day to keep myself up so late. But early enough for me to see it, with the sky barely dark enough, the aurora arced faintly over the mountains anyway.
And that felt really, really, good.
Home
The next night in a very empty apartment that was now mine, I looked over construction debris and a gorgeous new neighbourhood, to again the aurora dancing over the mountains. After all, a good part of choosing the exact apartment I did was my expectation of the aurora here.
I felt like the luckiest person in the world, but without any knowledge of how common this perfect weather and auroral activity was. But for the moment, it was all I needed.
For nights more since, I’ve watched the aurora dance from my bed.
"It was frustrating almost to tears."
Daytime drives out along the highways were exhausting. Exploring every side road, every driveway, poking around any exit off the highway in search of quiet locations with good views felt never ending and far from rewarding. A map littered with dots and notes to mark my discoveries is a much better idea on paper than it is practical.
Truly the only way this situation was going to get any better, or comfortable at all, was through forced experience. Something that was even more uncomfortable than just the raw uncomfortableness of such a big change in the first place.
Then on a night with extraordinary auroral activity, I decided I would try a new highway I hadn’t yet been out to, not even in the daytime. I hadn’t even looked closely at the highway on a map or Google Earth to get a sense of side roads of highway pullouts. This was, unsurprisingly, not the happiest night of my life.
I drove through the best minutes of the aurora, over and over again, totally unaware of where I was and what was around me. It was one of the most frustrating few hours of my life, before I left the aurora in the middle of her show to turn around and just come straight home. It was frustrating almost to tears.
