The calling

The almost u-turn

As I crossed the Yellowknife River a few minutes from town, I just about pulled into the snowy shoulder of the highway to make an immediate u-turn.

The sunlight was bright on my face, catching all the beautiful ice crystals on the passenger side windows — the obviously shady side of the car in my driveway.

The temperature was around -15°C, but despite that, the ice build up on the side of the river appeared paper thin at most. I could get home, get my kayak and paddles in my car, trade my mukluks for hiking boots, my parka for a couple layers of wool, and be scooting out into the river in my kayak in less than an hour.

I resisted though, and carried on driving further out, hoping I was making the right decision.

"Driving soothes me."

The ice calling out

As I drove over Yellowknife River, I actually didn’t know where I was going yet. Somewhere far out from town, but no where in particular. Of course this is just as well; driving soothes me. The entire countryside was covered in hoar frost, beautiful as ever. I caught myself many times slowed to below the speed limit, watching out in awe.

I found myself far out from town, alone on a lake that I have no idea just how far it stretches or behind how many corners it carries on.

Remember a few posts ago I asked you to ‘hold your thumbs’ for me, or cross your fingers for some luck, that I could make a small recording of the singing ice?
Well I really hope you will enjoy this short video. I don’t know the first thing about editing or cleaning up sound recordings, so you will need a quiet space and a high volume to be able to hear a little bit of my experience, and one that is far more surreal in person than through a camera without a proper microphone just resting on top of the ice, of course.

In all of these moments, it was like life had never been more perfect. The feeling of utter perfection in the sunlight, the delicate beauty in the fallen snowflakes and formed ice crystals, the cracks everywhere in the ice - I was really sure I had never lived a more beautiful experience.

All the singing of the ice, sometimes so loud I could easily hear it despite the crunch of the snow as I walked, and the insulation of my toque and hood. I really don’t think there is a more beautiful sound. It is soothing and calming in an overwhelming but completely natural and familiar way.

“This environment is my heaven, but it’s not free of struggle.”

The harshness of winter persists

Part of my love of winter is it’s unforgiving nature. The lightest breezes, which sound like category 5 hurricanes on camera, by the way, are numbingly uncomfortable. I repeatedly curl my fingers and thumbs into the palms of my hands inside my mittens in a desperate grasp for warmth, and sometimes even just a few seconds of contact with the metal barrel of a camera lens to set the focus can be incredibly painful.

Time standing still

Lying down on the ice, keeping a mostly exact stillness in my body, it seemed like I could stay there forever. Each sound of the ice as beautiful and interesting as the last. When I would lift my head and look in another direction, each time it struck me how much the light and the sky all around had changed. Time was passing so quickly while the whole world felt so still.

Toward the end, I was lying facing the sunset in the southwest, but back in the northeast, the earth’s shadow and the Belt of Venus were becoming more discernible. Darkness was falling and I needed to start back across the lake for my car, covered again in a light layer of ice crystals already.

Cautious steps out into a singing ice

For more than 24 hours, as I sit beginning to write this, the wind has been gusting strong. Definitely it is not relenting from last night in the centre of a lake. Specific edges and corners of this perfect little home allow through the most subtle drafts if you are sensitive enough. The wind audibly rumbles along the exterior walls, and the windows shake a bit in the strongest gusts. It wakes me in the middle of the night.
I don’t mind it at all. It’s the exact winter I love most, such harsh conditions outside and the cosiest safe place inside.

"I knew within seconds of stepping out of my car; I was severely underdressed."

That safe and cosy place sometimes is nestling right into my parka in an otherwise open and exposed, brutal environment. The fur trim of my hood wraps up and around my face, always catching my peripheral vision.

Despite tucking my chin right down into the top of my parka zipped all the way up, my poor little nose could not be spared. A balaclava would have been nice. There was little doubt I also should have had mittens instead of gloves, and my mukluks instead of hiking boots.

My fingers and toes froze, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tiptoe back across the ice to the car to properly warm them up. The aurora was too beautiful, and in that obsessed-with-the-power-of-nature kind of the way, the brutal wind was too special. It was raw. But even still, moments of turning away to shelter from the wind felt less of a conscious choice than pure instinctual reaction.

"Facing the wind head on was the only option if I wanted to watch her dance."

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Like a cross between a wind tunnel and whales communicating

The ice sung all night, and it was even more beautiful than the few nights before. It was the most perfect company—an ultimate soothing in the chaos of the wind.

Usual high and low pitch bubbles of sound were consistent throughout the night. They were gentle and soothing, and as if you were listening in super slow motion. It’s comforting far more than it is unsettling.

Losing the forest for the trees

The sun was actively burning away the slow, few day accumulation of frost which had blanketed the forest. Anywhere the low sun could no longer reach remained covered in the most beautiful, minuscule ice crystals.

"There was really no choice but to go slowly."

I would often lose track of where I had walked. The subtle markers tied around trees became lost easily in the low sun at my face. The ice and frost covering the rock faces meant baby steps forward was the only way, but slowing down was exactly what I needed.

Five hours of the most still silence, and just one ptarmigan to send my heart into my throat

Like out of nowhere, an idling Dash-8 aircraft appears a metre from your ear. That’s what it is to be adjusting into a forest of silence, of just the light crunch of my footsteps on some hardened frost covered flora and the occasional sniffle, and to out of nowhere have a ptarmigan try to fly out of a tree I’ve walked under.

There is only one way down a rock face covered in frost and ice, and of course that is by a light bum slide.

A wish it would never end

Almost 8 hours after I ran out the door, I came back upstairs for a far-beyond-midnight bowl of chocolate Life cereal and was genuinely shocked at the chaos of my kitchen.

I had caught myself completely off guard with just how quickly I ran out of the house a little after 7:30pm.

Shepherd’s pie, saran wrap, and a half drunk cup of tea

I, evidently, messy poured a pot of tea mostly.. partly, into my thermos before running out the front door with my parka hanging by it’s hood off my head, my gloves and toque shoved into my unzipped shoulder camera bag, and with my tripod wedged against my hip being held with my arm, I managed to lock the front door behind me, mostly sure I had all what I needed.

Left behind sitting on the counter was a mostly cooled down uncovered shepherd’s pie, a box of saran wrap for which there was no time, and a half drunk cup of tea which did manage to make it at least into the kitchen from the sofa.

It was from that exact place where I mindlessly tapped ‘SpaceWeatherLive’ on my iPhone, then ‘GOES Magnetometer’, and all within about 5 seconds, I turned to look out the window, got up from the sofa and ran toward the kitchen sliding a half full cup of tea across the counter while rounding the corner to stampede down the stairs and get changed.

I did make it back upstairs to fill my thermos with tea though, of course.

The weak in the stomach feeling

It was the kind of night the aurora could definitely maybe, probably I think if you’re lucky, be visible in Vancouver or Montana. And by the end of the night, during that last hour and the last few photos I took, I knew without a doubt she was. The behaviour of the aurora becomes distinctly unique and the perspective very rare.

16-17 March 2013 in Vancouver, BC.

3-4 November 2021 in Yellowknife, NT.

My heart ached in a strange way, the way it always does when I know the aurora is far reaching. It is mostly a surrealness and raw nostalgia.
It had been the most spectacular night tonight, I could not have asked for more.

Do you hear it?

Soothing singing and goosebumps

Listening to the sounds of the ice while it is beginning to really freeze from a few centimetres is one of my favourite sounds.

You have to imagine the total silence of the nature and from nowhere, echoing pings which feel so natural and soft but also like thunderclaps that make your arm hairs stand.

If it really does become cold now, I hope so much to sit out on the ice and try to record some sounds. Let’s see how the next days are. Håller tummarna.

Signs of winter

The early signs of winter feel late, but I am happy. The flora is soft still, the berries are hanging on, and the ground is entirely snowless, but not frostless. Ice forms overnight but melts away during the day. Iced windows on cars is an every night occurrence now, and each time I freeze my fingers for one more last car wash of the year, I mentally prepare for it to be my last.

I hate to have a dirty car. I really, really don’t love it.

But this was far too beautiful of a day to worry about how dirty the back of my car would be hours later, and the long term forecast still had +6s and +7s in it, so my hose would not be frozen solid yet.
I didn’t know where I wanted to go, I didn’t have any place in mind. Driving just clears my mind.

"October sunshine is not a cheap sunshine."

The sun is all day low in the sky now. The warmth of the sunlight both in temperature and colour is the perfect feeling. It is a strong contrast to the cool air, the cold water, how nature has shed so much leaving just bare branches. October sunshine is not a cheap sunshine. It’s the kind you feel in your bones and in your soul, the kind that makes the forest almost call out in such overwhelming beauty and stillness.

Maybe nothing felt nicer than just sitting out here, sipping hot coffee, occasionally feeling a cloud of mist rush up off the water.

The light changed so slowly and subtly. When the sun did fall behind the trees, there became this almost eerie stillness and immediate chill in the air. The wind died, the river upstream became totally still on the surface and the colours all around so muted.

The drive home was peaceful and interrupted more than once for some moments of bliss with the sunset.

Dinner didn’t take long tonight. It was a leftovers night of course. I took my forever evening tea with me and drove again for the open sky, the water which gently laps at the shore and after some time, the aurora dancing furiously right above.

This was a long, long day, but with almost all of it in the company of warm drinks and nature. This is the most beautiful life, one I really long for in the most consistent way.