“Immer hinter der Kamera laufen”

Immer hinter der Kamera laufen. Immer hinter der Kamera laufen. Immer hinter der Kamera laufen.

“Always walk behind the camera” was our mantra for the night. We huddled near to the car as we always do, and every time one of us picked up our tripod to chase the aurora around the sky… “Immer hinter der Kamera laufen!” as to not cross in front of another mid-shot.

An obvious benefit to solar maximum are nights like this one, of course. All the most amazing colours, visible to the eye and everything, along with the most beautiful dancing structures.

The weather moved fast, as it often does here, but we settled in to a great little spot under mostly clear sky. The fresh snow on the mountains was magical. It felt like a really, really special night - the kind that became engraved in my memory.

It’s so easy to be in love with this lifestyle on these nights, and now more than ever, they aren’t ever taken for granted.

Time brings all things to pass

On the first of back to back nights, clear skies abounded. Really, truly clear skies - not just Whitehorse clear. I make fun of our weather a little bit. Clear usually translates something closer to a few clouds, and overcast lands closer to cloudy periods. The other 99% of the time is partly cloudy. None of this is bad, for you. For me, it creates a little more stress than what I feel is ideal.

So this first night, clear skies were everywhere early, which meant cherry picking a favourite place under wonderful aurora conditions. If we stayed long enough, we may meet some slow travelling cloud up from the south, but it wasn’t likely, and in the end waiting that long wasn’t necessary. The aurora danced early and often.

Our second night presented an ever so slightly less optimistic scenario. The weather was pretty bad, the aurora conditions much worse, and an early morning flight departure meant we didn’t have all night.

We left Whitehorse in the rain, but with a clear direction out of town for clearing skies working their way toward us. On the drive out, I saw a dramatic change in the aurora data which perked my ears up and landed a sheepish smile on my face. There is sometimes that little bit of magic in life and in timing.

Our night worked out in the most magical way, and my love for that was never more, standing in such a different place just hours earlier.

It never leaves you

“I think sometimes you don’t know what a place is to you until you have to leave it.”

A completely new to me part of the Yukon, and truly I could not believe what we stumbled into. It was like some sort of mystical fairyland cross of Iceland’s Thingvellir National Park, West Fjords and Norway’s coast, but all less than 200km from my door.

This sense of overwhelming, full body, cute rage kind of exhilaration, amazement and disbelief isn’t something I have felt maybe ever. I think sometimes you don’t know what a place is to you until you have to leave it, and then you long for it every day since you’ve left.

As often as I joke about on road trips pulling over every 100m for the changing scenery, this was our reality here. Paralyzed by a complete inability to progress beyond where we were without first combing over every moss and berry covered rock, admiring the little lakes and streams that have formed in every crevice. Peeking over one ridge led to the next and the next and before I knew it, I was far from the car. I lived in a place between wanting to stay forever, but explore further. These days passed much too quickly, but of course we will be back soon again.

Fresh snow and fall colours

One last trip out to Kluane before the rest of September fills out with almost nightly aurora chases. It’s my busiest month since 2020, and I’m so thankful for that, but you won’t find me pretending it’s not really hard.

The one thing I’ve wanted more than anything in the world since about March 21st, 2020 - a day after the Northwest Territories locked down for what ended up being almost 2 full years, was security and safety. And the one place you won’t find safety and security, is in a small, tourism sole proprietorship. But I love it. I did before 2020, in all my naivety, and I still do love it today too, but it’s definitely different. I’ve been in and out, searching for day jobs, desk jobs, where everything in my life changes in favour of that security and safety, but for right now, I still carry on here. It’s not that I don’t love this, in fact I probably appreciate it more than I ever have, in a place that’s more beautiful than anywhere I’ve ever lived, but sometimes things just change.

“Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”

After a summer of successfully nurturing a pathetic few blades of grass into a now small green oasis in an otherwise sandy construction zone outside my apartment, yellows and reds continue to spring up everywhere around us. All over the mountains, shadows dance revealing entire fields of beautiful fall colour. Clouds lift from the mountain peaks outside of my windows, showing fresh snow that lasts the day or maybe two. It’s magical, and I wish I had more time for intimate nature bathing, all day, every day, but these little moments every day noticing those new patches of yellow, hillsides of red, and peaks with new snow are enough to let out some heavy beauty sighs, and I love that. I really love that a lot.

Back to the scene of the muskelkater

As we were coming down around 8 in the evening, we resigned ourselves to wishing that we had gotten an earlier start to the day - which says a lot about a couple of pure night owls.

The truth, though, is that no matter what time we started our day of berry picking, we were always going to have wished it could have been longer. This was only made worse by just how gorgeous the evening had become. From one of the muddiest drives out in light rain to magical, golden sunlight.

Berry picking has become a yearly ritual for me these last few. I love having these little bursts of flavour and vitamins stored for the winter. I love the small act of rebellion against our grocery cartels in Canada. But more than all that, I love the solace and the quiet way up and far away. It is the best shared silence, ever.