Tales of the beautiful everyday from the North
A quick check in on spring melt
A year ago, I couldn’t understand how beautiful the end of April and beginning of May was here. I was in it but I couldn’t make sense of it.
I struggled every night choosing between playoff hockey double headers or long countryside sunset drives and drone flights. The sunset chases and changes in the ice drove me night after night into the latest hours of the night with a chest so full of love it constantly felt like it was going to explode. But it was not always like this.
“I always hated May so much.”
There was a time not long ago when almost the day after my last April aurora chase in Yellowknife, I would be fulfilling an itch to leave the territory as fast as I possibly could to go south until summer was in full swing and there wasn’t a trace of the dusty, uncomfortably bright and underwhelmingly dead countryside of May.
But May in Whitehorse cannot go slow enough. I wish the nights would last forever, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here. This weekend was the perfect opportunity to check in on the progress of spring, and all of what I fell so in love with a year ago is right on schedule. I never love losing the aurora for the summer, but as she begins to inevitably fade into later and later and everlasting sunsets and sunrises for the next few months, I am so ready for these magical evenings that are just ahead.
Weeks of strong contrasts
The warmth of the spring sun cannot be mistaken now, but still the cold wind cannot be either. A time of contrasts continue on - long, long days with the most magnificent sunshine and car washing temperatures while brief dark and cool nights fill with the aurora still.
Swan Haven, my favourite Yukon discovery last spring, is home once again to some 1,000+ tundra and trumpeter swans. Their numbers are on the decline now as they move on for the further north. The shore ice is decreasing every day out there, and everywhere else.
Some kilometres further south, moose nibble buds off branches and play in open fields buried under 40cm of snow. On mountain sides everywhere, the south facing slopes are void of any snow or signs of winter while the north facing sides still look like they are stuck in February.
Down in Carcross, it was the final few days of quiet before the cruise ships begin their returns to Skagway at the end of April.
And back at home, I have my first light sunburn of the year and increasing numbers of freckles on my face from morning coffee in the sun on my balcony. The gravel trucks seem to make endless passes on the streets nearby to sweep up the last of winter, and that makes 10pm sunset roller blades through the paths around the neighbourhood just so perfect.
Heaven on earth
The struggles and rewards of a 5:10am departure
Even thinking about how much I love roadtrips, love to drive, and love any drive involving the north, I still thought to myself that I maybe would rather fly, given the choice.
I remain convinced the 2 hours between Whitehorse and Vancouver at some 35,000ft is among the most beautiful time I could spend anywhere in the world, especially as we traded the last of the northern lights for sunrise and the typically cosy service from Air North.
The endless mountains, the glaciers, the brightening twilight sky so soft and seemingly endless coffee and perfect little breakfast on board just could not have made for a better far too early morning. Although one more sleepless night at the end of an aurora season was nothing new under the sun.
So this quick week away was the best of both worlds - another treat of a flight down, and a three night, 2,800km drive back up a few days later - the most relaxed and leisurely schedule I’ve ever had as long as I’ve been in the north.
After a second day of 800+ kilometres, we settled into our wood cabin in the middle of nowhere with leftover Subway, which we quickly decided to postpone enjoying until after a late night trip to the Liard Hot Springs just 60km away. The drive further along the shores of Muncho Lake and through the Liard bison herd was breathtaking, as it always is.
Spending golden hour, sunset and twilight in these natural springs ranging from 34°-44°C was nothing short of heavenly. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves, and the loudest sound was the water trickling into the pools.
So of course we made another stop there on our morning out before continuing home. The few degrees below zero meant it was a cold, quick change into our swim suits, but then it was all heavenly and the most relaxed 700 kilometres home from there.
A meditative state
Sitting out on the counter from a late, late bake the night before were some 5-minutes-too-long-in-the-oven scones.
In the morning now, snow just fell and fell and fell from low, overcast cloud. It seemed like every time I looked out the windows, the clouds had gotten lower until none of the mountains were visible at all.
It really was just the cosiest homebody kind of day, where the 11am sunrise blurs into the late afternoon sunset, and my cosy window lights never lose their glow against the sky outside, and we were supposed to be going to the mountains.
We easily agreed to delay 24 hours, leaving plenty of time for a new batch of scones to be over-baked, however I didn’t. Sugar was still nowhere to be found, and these couldn’t be completely inedible, I was mostly pretty sure.
Aside from having to dodge a snowplow a few times, waiting a day was just the best decision. Hot coffee and heartfelt conversation filled the car as we travelled deeper into nature. Fast moving clouds, mountains of snow, and cold, but not frigid, winter air on my face brought back so much Norwegian nostalgia. Time passed far too quickly, and soon we were stumbling down a snowy hillside in the dark.
Sometime while I was sleeping in the late evening after our heavenly afternoon and getting warm drinks ready just before 11pm, the skies had mostly cleared.
Instinctively upon waking up, I look skeptically to the sky in search of cloud banks, double checking weather maps, looking for where the other shoe is going to drop from. I think that’s the years and years of chasing clear sky, obsessing over the weather night after night, for 9 months of the year. But that other shoe wouldn’t come tonight, we were in the clear all evening, but as ever, that’s just half our story.
“Good, but calm. And it would be nice if things were a little bit more unsettled.”
With the weather as close as we come to worry free in Whitehorse, it was onto the aurora conditions which were good, but calm. Full moons in the middle of winter always give some challenges, as beautiful as they are.
We waited as long as we could tonight in the company of the occasionally heard singing ice of the lake. Careful steps out onto the shore cracked the ice under my feet. It was equal parts alarming as calming. There is something so special about the ice. An early morning flight departure eventually brought us back into town. Despite squeezing every last minute out of our clear skies tonight, the aurora remained quiet. Gentle, but beautiful low across the horizon.
Making every second count
Seeing the first seconds of pink sunlight touch the peaks of the Kluane and St. Elias Mountains confirmed to me that setting out from Whitehorse deep, deep in blue hour was the exact right decision.
The days are among some of the shortest of the year now, and the beauty of Kluane extends further than perhaps any other time of the year. The forever low and golden sunlight emphasizes that. You know by now my obsession with light and ice.
Our entire day felt almost eerily quiet with very few passing vehicles. The forests felt predictably quiet - a few squirrels, a lone gray jay, and a grouse couple that, as ever, sent my heart into my throat with their chaotic helicopter takeoff hidden in a tree. Then, closing in on darkness, a herd of somewhere near 100 elk off both sides of the highway halted our plan of a late visit to a lake along the way back home in favour of taking our time loving on all our new furry friends.
These are the best days, the ones of magical light, majestic views, and of making every second count.
