Tales of the beautiful everyday from the North
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.
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.
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
A chaotic, messy time
The ugliest time
My life this time of the year always feels so chaotic and messy. There’s so much messy, dustiness, and crazy weather. Gale force winds, hail, snow and sun within a couple hours. Clouds blow low overhead at unbelievable speed. I think a lot of this feeling is the dramatic temperature swings. The sun is so hot, but by nightfall I’m bringing all my plants back inside and experiencing the most excruciating pain in my ears because of the cold wind while on a short run.
In Yellowknife, the ugliest time of the year for me was May. The aurora was all but gone, gravel filled the streets, dog poop any trail or sidewalk, and nature was just a snowless, dry mess lacking colour or life. I hated it. I could never get out of Yellowknife fast enough when aurora season ended.
I was expecting something similar now in Whitehorse, but it was far less so. The end of April was a little rough, but street sweeping started in March and continued quickly along, and that sort of… ‘ugly’ in nature just never really happened. The snow would melt and vibrant lichen and moss already seemed to be thriving. River ice loosened it’s grip and the vibrant teals and blues never looked more beautiful. New growth on evergreen trees seemed to be everywhere.
“There’s just nowhere else I’d rather be right now.”
My mornings now are basking in the eastern sun on my patio with my coffee, and over half the day later, the aurora still appears faint against the twilight northern sky too.
The ugliest time has also always been lightened by the return of the birds to the north. The return of the swans was a spectacular and addictive experience for me this year, and if you’ll ever come to Whitehorse in April or early May, you cannot miss a visit to Swan Haven and the opportunity to chat or walk with expert Jukka Jantunen, which of course we did a few times.
With my mamma bear safely back in the scorching southern heat, I’ve fallen back into my night owl ways.
The last week of evenings for me have been out in the countryside late into, and well through, the night. Hours of hours of chasing the most beautiful light, sweet smells of the forest, and innocent, quiet exploration through forests, along shorelines, and gravel roads. I haven’t felt such a love of life, curiousity and inspiration like this in such a long time, and at the heels of what has traditionally been my least favourite time of the year is both so unexpected and very, very welcome.
The whole family together
Cold fingers and a warm heart
”Is the stop sign dancing today?”
Whitehorse is often receiving these brutal winds on cloudy, stormy days. There’s a stop sign outside of my bedroom window that I often joke is dancing.
Snow blows off roofs and veins down the streets. It’s beautiful. It’s one of my happiest, simple pleasures. I could make a coffee and watch it all day. It’s the sheer beauty and power of winter from inside, from my happiest place.
Frostbite of years
My cheeks, my nose, especially my fingers. They hurt so much in the cold. Even this spring in the south, it was more painful than I could describe. The wind against my ears was almost intolerable.
For years, every cold night of too little time inside and too much time trying to take photos led to this sort of pain. For years before even that, I would spend nights outside in Yellowknife’s -40 without even a balaclava. I made the tall collar of my parka, now 12 years old, enough protection for my face somehow.
That pain was one of the things that helped me find peace in leaving Yellowknife. It was small, comparatively tiny to everything else, but it had a place on the "leaving” side of the paper all the same.
Mountain air
In this warmer weather of very recently, there have been clear nights too. Afternoons of the most amazing golden hours and sunsets have been plentiful. Low cloud catching sunset light would blow by so quickly overhead. The beauty is almost always too much.
On one of these days, I made a spontaneous and humble drive to the countryside. I knew I needed time there, I could feel that. The temperature was -7° in town, but would reach -19° when I parked, which I wasn’t dressed for. I could immediately feel the cold on my legs, face, and hands.
I was oblivious to the moonrise, but it was nearly full and up just over the mountains down the river. I explored the river ice, I watched the clouds, the colours of the sky, and listened to the water and the birds. Time almost stood still. These winter blues and passings clouds were among the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Maybe that is some nostalgia from Norway too, in these mountains. Or maybe it’s just the slow, conscious loving on nature.
While changing lenses or taking short videos on my phone, I could feel the cold wind grip my fingers and my hand. It hurt. But I kept noticing it wasn’t quite like before. It still hurt, but it’s better. It’s like my skin has started to heal. For a couple of years, it’s been painful and noticeable at every moment. But now over months, over my falling in love with the Yukon and my life here, my cheeks haven’t hurt as much, my fingers feel better outside in the cold, and the wind on my ears doesn’t make me want to crawl into the fetal position. I can enjoy the winter wind more again.
So just maybe a healing of the heart helps to heal the body too.
“These winter blues and passing clouds were among the beautiful things I had ever seen.”
Light obsessions
December 2007 was my second time in Norway, 9 months after my first.
On the Lofoten Islands, the sun would rise and set again without making it fully over the horizon. Sunrise and sunset were one event. For a little over an hour around noon, the sun would travel just 16° peeking only slightly over the horizon.
It felt so slow, but of course it was the blink of an eye in the context of a day.
"This life of darkness was a true love and an unusual beauty."
I would spend long evenings alone in a fisherman’s rorbuer. The interior walls were natural wood, which meant the lighting inside was particularly warm and cosy. The village smelled of dried fish, hanging by the thousands on racks throughout the village. The sound of the ocean was constant.
Nights split between a mix of low overcast cloud hanging over the mountains or the northern lights arcing over the islands.
I spent these nights peering out the window at the glow of the lights or outside in the company of the aurora until my toes became numb. The brightness outside on those cloudy nights and fresh snow was unmistakable. The mystery in the darkness of a clear night after dinner was thrilling.
This life of darkness was a true love and an unusual beauty.
That’s when I became obsessed.
"Exactly 15 years later, I am more obsessed with the darkness of winter than I have ever been."
There exists I think a nostalgia in me for the real quiet of a time in remote places before easy, mass travel.
I had a journal to pass time inside, not a smart phone or a computer. I didn’t stream movies on cloudy nights. I would sit at a cracked open window against the radiator and drink tea.
Winter has always given me this comfort. The darkness and the cold is a slower pace to life that I’ve always preferred.
The mountains of Whitehorse are just like Lofoten. The arcs of the northern lights over, and hiding behind, sharp peaks fulfill some of this nostalgia in a way so perfect that there aren’t any words for it.
While the Yukon’s adoption of year round UTC -0700 puts sunrise at this time of the year after 11am, there is nearly 6 hours of sunlight during these shortest days. But the long lingering twilight of such a northern latitude is comfortingly similar to those little fishing villages just below the arctic circle in Scandinavia.
And chasing that golden sunlight and deep twilight blue in a snow covered landscape is just good for my soul. It’s reminiscent of my earliest days of being so certain of a love. It is needed.
