Tales of the beautiful everyday from the North
A needed retreat
It’s the dead of winter, and for weeks our nights lingered in the -20s, -30s, and -40s. It was the frozen lake, steaming river, dry snow crunch under my mukluks kind of winter that just makes my heart feel so free.
The aurora rose over mountain ranges and danced around the sky until all hours of the morning. Clouds moved in and passed quickly. Getting back home to bed at 5am was becoming a regular occurrence and I would wake before sunrise at 11am with heavy eyes but a full heart. It’s the best feeling kind of life and a needed retreat back into my life of old.
More recently, the temperatures have warmed and brought more cloudy skies but the chase into the countryside, during the days and the nights, for beautiful light continues on.
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.
