That was needed

Yesterday was like waking up in a totally different season. The air was cool, the sun is staying lower in the sky, and these kinds of clouds always make me think of the fall, especially those few sunny days we get through October.

It felt like just the perfect day to bundle up a little bit and take a cosy coffee out with me to the water. All of the colours of nature now are so beautiful and the smells of the forest are so strong, pure and sweet.

Another lynx moving through the forest from some distance away.

A magic lurking within

I always thought there is no way to capture that majesty that is so strong within a forest, like you just want to bottle up the lush stillness to keep forever. It is perfect. There is something about just one small few metres of an entire shoreline that draws you in and almost grabs you to keep you near, and then the light hits it just right and it’s as close to keeping something tangible from it as I’ve found, but still a long way from those real moments.

This sunset gave chills to my arms. Almost a carbon copy of summer skies from cottage country in Ontario. Sure, some mosquitos and flies, but nothing a short bath in repellant can’t help to fix. Really though, this overwhelming stillness and softness in the sky - pastel colours, a storm threatening on one side and this surreal sunset on the other, actually warm air - really - I think we had 27°C today, and total quiet.

What a beautiful life to worry not of the time, if it’s 9pm or 1am. It doesn’t matter. The world around just becomes more quiet and more beautiful, the sky ever changing.

In previous years, I always feel ready for the dark nights to return and for winter to come back but, and despite being just over summer solstice, it’s different this year. I really wish this never ends.

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.

The return of the first rain

We had our first rainy day yesterday. I can’t tell you how good it felt to wake up, light a few candlesticks and have a cosy breakfast with the first rain in around eight months for me and I missed it so much. All through the morning I could hear it sporadically pounding down on the roof. I think it has to be one of my favourite sounds.

I fully planned to spend the day relighting candles, cosying up on the sofa and finally catching you up again on some late, late nights here. I have so many photos that I want to share with you here and definitely I still will come back to that in a few days.

I really felt satisfied for how beautiful it was to be totally alone out in the fog and in the nature. The bigger part of this lake is still totally frozen, and floating slowly around I could feel the air temperature change drastically by sometimes just a few metres difference.

It felt so good to come back home and warm up some leftover soup and again light some candles. After dinner and a few cups of tea, I just couldn’t resist the temptation of going back outside. I was not even sure there would be still any fog, but of course there was. The smells of the forest were so sweet and overwhelming. The sunset became more of a journey and instead of some destination. I just kept paddling further and further up the river, reaching for the most dense areas of fog. I want to say I have never sensed something more beautiful through all of the humidity and sweet smells, and constant singing by the birds, and of course incredible beauty, but I try to remind myself of those dry, -40° winter nights under the aurora too.

On the way back, during almost the darkest time of the night, I crossed again more wide open water where there was no sense of space. The visibility was mostly just a few metres. Small tree branches would come up out of nowhere, and in the distance one of the most beautiful but probably heartbreaking sounds - a young bird on the water lost in the fog calling for it’s mother.