The simple things

There is just something so perfect here. And I know you maybe tell me about the clothes drying all crunchy instead of soft from the dryer machine, but this smell of nature in your laundry, the feeling of the clothes after… You cannot find that from any other way. The smell and the sunlight, the way they blow in the breeze. It’s part of the simplest pleasures and more countryside life for me.
How I would love a little light wood floored and white interior, red exterior countryside home on some forested land with a small garden, and of course my clothesline to use from +30° to -30°.

Slowing down, sleepless nights, and a meaningful miracle at the end of a few thousand kilometres

A hyggelig day

The day before I would drive several thousand kilometres, I spent hours outside in a misty day, brushing against wet leaves feeling water droplets run down my hands, slowly picking berries from bushes. I don’t know what can be a more perfect fall day feeling. It was sleepy, quiet, but conscious and appreciating. My love of the warm oven and cosy smells all day, the fresh berries, the mess of dishes and doughs, the lighted candlesticks inside, has never been more. It’s hard to imagine it more perfect in some ways.

Vetebullar

Fyriskaka

The nights before a some 2,500 kilometre drive should have been all early bedtimes and long, sound sleeps.
I really tried to let it be so, but those nights were about the total opposite. My drive was slow, interrupted often for wildlife, photography, fika, an emergency deodorant run, and naps in the back of the car - all what a road trip should be.

The little heart cloud preceding an incredible thunder and lightning storm was somehow real, and deeply appreciated <3

For now, I hide away at a quiet cabin hundreds of kilometres further away still, endlessly craving infinite hours of sleep, but I see you again soon.

Coffee and crowberries

The wind today howled. The type of gusts that make you wish to spread your arms and just let it carry you half a step backward while the trees of the forest around give some loud creaking noises.

It was the most perfect afternoon to sit quietly with a warm coffee, pick at small bushes of ripening crowberries and watch the wind whip up water across a small lake.

A happiness unmatched

A year or two ago, a guest on tour had told me they had rented a car and drove to the end of the Ingraham Trail. They had photos of river otters, in the middle of winter, laying up on the ice eating some fish. I couldn’t believe it. I was ecstatic for them and thought I’d just die to see otters myself here someday. Earlier this ‘summer’, minutes after I was looking eye to eye with a lynx on the shore, just a few metres from my kayak, a river otter swam up and curiously stayed around me for some minutes before disappearing back under water and swimming away. I was just amazed, and of course too much like a deer in headlights to have changed lenses.

If you follow closely in on the ‘v’ of the ripples of the water, you can see the little otter poking up.

6 years coming

Almost a thousand nights driving the highways outside of Yellowknife. Lynx sightings has been few and far between, but there have been a few.

I just cannot tell you how I have dreamt of being able to photograph one in the daytime though, instead of always just catching their eyes in headlights at 2am. This night I was slowly just spacily paddling along the shore when something a little further down the shore at the water’s edge caught my eye. It was a lynx, and my heart shot to my throat. I froze. It walked casually through a more heavily forested area as I crept behind until I came to an open rock face. I had lost sight of it, but I just sat at the shore amazed I had the view I did and listening for any noises in the forest. Then after about a minute, I looked up, and the lynx was just staring down at me. Exactly like your cuddly house cat on the arm of your sofa. This might have been the most perfect moment of my entire life. I could have stayed there forever.

The next few nights were filled with more magic still. One of the most surreal sunsets and beautiful light I have ever seen.

Another night, I had paddled closer to the shore to give a lot of space for an approaching boat still far down the river and that lead me right to two black bears at the shore.

Homebody homebody homebody

Most recently since these nights, when it was still cold enough to need to cover my frostbitten ears, I have been hunkered down in front of my computer for more time than is healthy, working away on the back end of my site and making visible changes too. The overnight twilight skies have been even more spectacular than I remember, and a few thunderstorms have passed through as well.

Sacrificing of my blood to the mosquitos that await me in the evenings out in my garden has resumed. After six years of searching, I have found lingonberry bushes in Canada that are now in the ground and already thriving at the side of my place. You can never understand the happiness in my heart of having my very own lingonberry bushes. They are my favourite, favourite berries by far, and so much of my nostalgia from Scandinavia.
Green is peeking from the dirt in my garden boxes, and I have made room for a few more mature berry bushes and trees still.

This already has been entirely my dream northern summer, and I just can’t say how happy it makes me.

The slow withering away of winter

It is another rainy day here in Yellowknife, so in a little afternoon fika, a coffee and muskotsnittar (nutmeg slice), finally I will take you back to some nights several weeks ago.

My first night out in kayak this year was not without some struggles. The shore ice was still several metres wide, so launching into the water from the shore involved scooching in my kayak across the ice first, but was ultimately not too eventful.
To get out of the water was totally a separate matter. I had to reach the ice with enough speed to send the front of the kayak up onto the ice far enough that I did not slip backward into the water again. This was not accomplished on the first try, or the second or third, but it was eventually successful, with everything still dry.

The perfect song

To have had a proper sound recorder to carry with me these nights, that would have been really perfect. I don’t think it’s possible to imagine how beautiful all of the singing and chatter of the birds is, and still to hear so many noises from the ice too - almost like millions of crystals clanking together at the smallest ripple in the water. These nights were all still cold, as evidenced by the splashes of water on the front of my kayak turning to ice by the end of the night.

In the end, these nights have not felt so different than those that defined my life for years. Driving out of town into nature late, becoming increasingly chilled through the hours outside and soon craving the warmth and comfort of a cosy home, exhausted but too excited by the experience to sleep at any reasonable hour.