A seasonal love that challenges winter

I never expected to feel a love come close to the one I have for winter. The -40°, longer twilight hours than daylight hours, quiet and frozen everything love, but once again, fall in the Yukon takes a healthy run at it.

This day in Kluane kept getting pushed back for hopes of ‘better’ weather later and later in the week. I’m not sure what I was really expecting to find in the ‘perfect’ weather forecast — maybe more assurance of clear sky — but whatever that perfection in my mind was may as well have just been exactly this.

“Sometimes I think if you wait for a perfection, you may never really find it.”

Every mountain peak was not always visible, but as a result, early, or maybe the first, snow had dusted mountain peaks. Low clouds sat in valleys and floated beautifully in front of mountains. Sand storms blew up in the valley and moved gracefully along to disappear. I couldn’t tell you how many times I remarked through the day how happy I was to have the weather we did.

Entire landscapes and mountain sides were painted with every shade of yellow and burnt orange. It was all a beauty that was far too much. Even with guests, I couldn’t help myself from pulling off the side of the road more than what’s probably reasonable. I hadn’t even left Kluane yet and I was already planning a return on my own.

And while I’m sure come December, I will, without question, be so in love with winter that it won’t even feel close to the overall love I have for the fall, this was just once again probably the most beautiful day I’ve ever lived. And I know, I know I feel it and I say it or write it out loud pretty much every time I’m out in nature here.

Neighbourhood love

The outskirts of summer

Northern springs begin with me freezing in the morning sunshine on my patio with a cup of coffee that cools too quickly. 3°, sunshine, and no wind are the perfect early April mornings. But any wind, or passing clouds and I cower back under a throw.

The temperatures are slow to work their way above 0°, but the northern sun is strong. My seedlings were happy scattered around on windowsills, chasing the sun from the east windows over to the west. It was weeks around these windowsills, and then half days outside before nights back inside, and eventually they were set free outside to mature where still they grow.

Day length continued to grow and the temperatures too. As often as I was out driving through the night chasing midnight twilight skies, I would walk my beautiful neighbourhood and every forest trail I could find.

The snow eventually gave way to the flora of the forest floor, and the ice gave back the teal water views. Lupines sprung up all through the forest, and every day I thought the forests could never look more beautiful than the day before. Summer was a long way away but the forests were already magical beyond anything I had known before. They were my favourite place to be and I could not get enough.

More than just a starvation of my senses through winter, this was pure magic. It was all life returning. It was a world reawakening.

Sunset by sunset, summer has been coming to an end. Tonight felt like the last true summer night. The forecast ahead finally cools down from the consistently high 20s. The nights will reach closer to freezing and I will dance on the grave of every last mosquito. But tonight the wind was gusty and still warm, blowing the fragrant scent of white sweet clover, something I will long for and struggle to imagine in another half year.

The berries in the forest are now just beginning and will keep me busy into November. These early lingonberries bring me happiness beyond your wildest imagination. Soon my freezer will be full with them, but for now my palms are, walk after walk, night after night.

With longer nights, the treats of winter return. The evenings around the neighbourhood quiet down earlier and dramatic skies keep me on my toes, literally, running from one side of my apartment to the other.

Some late, late moments before bed, and before I wrap up the patio furniture for the winter, are spent out on the patio in still comfortable temperatures and in the best company of all.

The days of dim lighting and cosy darker nights are returning and I’m ready. But I’ll miss this a lot, and all the slow, friendly interactions with neighbours everywhere. I love this place more than a love I have ever known.

The meandering drive back north

“Sometimes the absence of options leads to the best one of all.”

After our horizontal migration from Calgary to Kamloops, I think it was the evening before we were leaving to start our more leisurely drive back home and Stewart, BC wasn’t even really on our radar.

We were getting a little desperate at this point and had resorted to massive physical maps, like the ones from CAA. Where we wanted to end up around at the end of our first day driving back just felt like a dead zone. Smithers was too close and just about anything further north than that may as well have been an entirely additional day of driving. Hotels were sparse and our ability to make a decision was even more rare.

Then we circled back to Stewart on the map, and sure it was a little bit out of the way, but after reading rumours of glacier views from the highway and bears basically outnumbering humans, we found a charming hotel with crooked, creaky floors and amazing views and booked it.

That was probably my favourite decision from the entire trip.

On the highway in, the winds were wildly strong but the air so warm and sweet. We travelled right through golden hour, and you can only imagine how breathtaking that light was cast over the mountain peaks towering up from either side of the highway. We did see bears, as promised, and as much as I wanted to spend the rest of the little remaining daylight sitting in front of glaciers, we resigned ourselves to tea and treats in our cosy little room at the Bayview Hotel.

Our final couple days on the road were spent soaking in and soaking up Northern BC. Every time we passed the Liard Hot Springs, we spent some hours there, again dreaming of returning in the middle of winter. We found cosy accommodation in Muncho Lake Provincial Park, and wandered around the mountains and the most teal lakes I’ve ever seen. By the time we parked back home, we had done 6,141.4 kilometres in a week and a half and were ready to do it again in a heartbeat.

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The annual road trip south

24 hour drives through the bright nights of northern summers have, over the last 8 years, become one of my favourite things in the world. Hotels never felt necessary because I could sleep just when I felt tired, which was rarely ever. I loved all the light, open space, and total freedom way too much.

This year was the same, but different. There was so much to see, so many places to stop. So many mountains, so many lakes, and so much wildlife. So we included an overnight in Fort St. John on the way down.

Our departure was not set in stone, but at 3:30 in the morning, all that remained was wrapping up a couple stollen along with other baking from the night before, re-warming our non-alcoholic Glühwein, and taking our blue IKEA bag full of snacks and goodies out to the car.

The sky was already bright, and although we weren’t driving all the way through in one day, we were still staring down a 1,300 kilometre day one, which we expectantly turned into an 18 hour day with truly dozens of wildlife sightings and goodness knows how many other photo and coffee stops. Some stops we planned, like Rancheria Falls and the Liard Hot Springs, but far more were spontaneous requiring u-turns more often than not. If we weren’t careful, we would have spent more hours in the shoulders off the side of the Alaska Highway watching bears, caribou, dozens or hundreds of bison, mountain goats and moose than we would have actually driving.

“Oh my god, oh my god, I’ll call you back! Baby bears!”

Nearing the end of day one, about halfway between Fort Nelson and Fort St. John, we were on the phone to my mum when I stopped her mid sentence with a dramatic “Oh my god, oh my god, I’ll call you back! Baby bears!”

It was what we had wished to see since we left this morning, and at the side of the highway, a mama bear and her three cubs. We pulled way off into the shoulder and just watched, photographed, and took video. It was the best.

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Asking the real questions — IKEA or the Icefields Parkway

At breakfast in our hotel at the beginning of day two, we still had not decided on our route to Calgary. A far more direct route via Edmonton that would include a convenient lunch stop/shop with better stock availability than Calgary, or a several hour detour through a mostly smoky Icefields Parkway. We were never going to have all the time we wanted for the Icefields Parkway this time, plus we hate summer, so we knew we’d be back eventually anyway. But in the end, we decided on the Icefields Parkway and it was more beautiful than I had remembered, and a quick Click & Collect order from IKEA Calgary to secure the lowest stock items made this the right decision for sure.

Sunset in Calgary at last

I can’t stop

Another perfect evening of slow driving along gravel roads, cautious walks along the river and flights out over thawing lakes.

“Every time feels like the first time.”

And I can’t stop. It’s like an addition, and every time feels like the first time. I can take the same flight paths over and over and never get tired of it. I am never uninterested.

Absolute stillness in the air

A silence not often understood can be hard to hear

Wildlife in their own world

Golden hour, sunset, and the northern twilight ever changing

This is just the most beautiful place and it just is my happiest place.