Guilty footsteps and repeating tire tracks

I had finally returned to Kusawa Lake for the first time since freeze up, and I was the first footprints out onto this pristine snow covered ice. A light guilt passed over me, not wanting to spoil any photos or such an undisturbed view with my footprints, as distinctively humble as the mukluk prints are. The step from the shore onto the lake was obvious to a good ear. The sound of the ice underneath my boot changed dramatically.

“It was the perfect, untouched winter landscape I would dream forever of.”

For the next couple of weeks, it seemed like I couldn’t make a decision that didn’t involve Kusawa Lake. Pristine, windswept snow was everywhere. It was the perfect, untouched winter landscape I would dream forever of.

It was the right place, on the right day, at the right time, so many times.

The true silence out here made time feel like it had stopped moving, and then I’d look at the clouds just a few hundred metres above fly by so quickly while the sunlight climbed the hills so slowly. The water still flowed effortlessly down the river while on the surface so much was completely frozen.

“There is no beauty like that of nature during the depth of winter. It is a world of extremes.”

On a night that demanded a lot of kilometres, and more trust in weather maps and weather patterns than I had experience of, we once again settled back around Kusawa Lake. The wind was fierce, but strangely comfortable at just -2°. Snow blew up in clouds across the highway and trees swayed violently in the forest. Pullout after pullout - cloud.

Still we had to wait for the clear skies to become reachable for us, but once they did, we were there and the stars and a few faint arcs of aurora in such a dramatic environment were worth all the trouble a thousandfold.

Cold fingers and a warm heart

”Is the stop sign dancing today?”

Whitehorse is often receiving these brutal winds on cloudy, stormy days. There’s a stop sign outside of my bedroom window that I often joke is dancing.

Snow blows off roofs and veins down the streets. It’s beautiful. It’s one of my happiest, simple pleasures. I could make a coffee and watch it all day. It’s the sheer beauty and power of winter from inside, from my happiest place.

Frostbite of years

My cheeks, my nose, especially my fingers. They hurt so much in the cold. Even this spring in the south, it was more painful than I could describe. The wind against my ears was almost intolerable.

For years, every cold night of too little time inside and too much time trying to take photos led to this sort of pain. For years before even that, I would spend nights outside in Yellowknife’s -40 without even a balaclava. I made the tall collar of my parka, now 12 years old, enough protection for my face somehow.

That pain was one of the things that helped me find peace in leaving Yellowknife. It was small, comparatively tiny to everything else, but it had a place on the "leaving” side of the paper all the same.

Mountain air

In this warmer weather of very recently, there have been clear nights too. Afternoons of the most amazing golden hours and sunsets have been plentiful. Low cloud catching sunset light would blow by so quickly overhead. The beauty is almost always too much.

On one of these days, I made a spontaneous and humble drive to the countryside. I knew I needed time there, I could feel that. The temperature was -7° in town, but would reach -19° when I parked, which I wasn’t dressed for. I could immediately feel the cold on my legs, face, and hands.

I was oblivious to the moonrise, but it was nearly full and up just over the mountains down the river. I explored the river ice, I watched the clouds, the colours of the sky, and listened to the water and the birds. Time almost stood still. These winter blues and passings clouds were among the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Maybe that is some nostalgia from Norway too, in these mountains. Or maybe it’s just the slow, conscious loving on nature.

While changing lenses or taking short videos on my phone, I could feel the cold wind grip my fingers and my hand. It hurt. But I kept noticing it wasn’t quite like before. It still hurt, but it’s better. It’s like my skin has started to heal. For a couple of years, it’s been painful and noticeable at every moment. But now over months, over my falling in love with the Yukon and my life here, my cheeks haven’t hurt as much, my fingers feel better outside in the cold, and the wind on my ears doesn’t make me want to crawl into the fetal position. I can enjoy the winter wind more again.

So just maybe a healing of the heart helps to heal the body too.

“These winter blues and passing clouds were among the beautiful things I had ever seen.”

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.

One more step

One more second of watching water flow beneath clear ice. One more minute of waves breaking against a frozen shore. One more step out further down the fjord, just to see how the view changes around the next small curve or what beautiful frozen pool is maybe still ahead. I just didn’t want this time to end, I didn’t want to go.

The small waves don’t do justice to the brutal wind whistling down the beach. The kind of wind that makes you tuck your face into the collar of your jacket with your hood up. The kind that makes you walk onward with your head down to try to protect your face in place of there being any other reprieve.

"It was extraordinarily painful and beautiful at the same time. It’s what I love so much about winter and what I can never can let go of."

Sips of hot coffee

These moments seemed to bring a more full sensory awareness. Sipping coffee left time to just admire the light, the reflections, and all the textures of the ice. The sound of the wind at one angle was deafening against my hood, but at another I could hear it’s gentleness and power in the trees. All of this just seemed to prolong a kind of perfection. It felt like time could have just stopped, but of course the orange sunlight climbed up the mountains and the blue gradients became more intense.

I still never wanted to just turn back for the car. It was too beautiful. Every magical moment of water crashing up over the ice at the shore, or new clouds passing rapidly by catching final rays of the sun, or that harsh sensation of the sharp wind on my skin. It was extraordinarily painful and beautiful at the same time. It’s what I love so much about winter and what I can never can let go of.