A life on gravel roads

I make a pot of tea after dinner, pretending that tonight is the night I will stay cosy at home, only to, by the time I’ve taken my first sip, already have decided that I need to be off on a highway driving into a blindingly low sun for another retreat to nature and sure rendezvous with wildlife.

Shadings of dust and sand would settle neatly in place on the back of my car while clouds of it chased me down more and more kilometres of gravel roads. The little ‘SOS’ and satellite icon in the upper corner of my iPhone has become an almost familiar comfort. This has been my nearly daily life for weeks now.

The mosquitos weren’t quite out yet, just the odd one that seemed dazed, confused, and way, way bigger than I remember. Snow is, of course, still very abundant in the mountains, and streams have begun to fill crevices through the flora, bringing magnificent colours back. It’s like the world comes back to life again, and I just think I have never been more in love with that.

But the last days I have finally spent more time inside than out, chasing any darkish corner in an all white, east and west facing apartment in the northern summer, with hopes of being able to curl up and edit any of the millions of photos and videos I’ve been taking.

Right now it is after midnight, and the sun is finally below the horizon. My salt lamp glows warmly on the windowsill, and behind it, the outline of the mountains against a bright twilight sky will remain for another few hours until the sun rises again. I want to take in every moment this, of the twilight glow and cool breeze in through the window. For these months, it’s difficult to keep a normal schedule. I want to be up all night and asleep through the middle of the day.

A time between

Blue hour hung over endlessly, ultimately until morning this time of the year. The sky was slow falling into enough darkness to allow the aurora to shine. Naturally, this is one of my favourite times of the year for that very reason. The magic just never ends. I cosied up in the car, eating fig bars and drinking tea, of course careful to grab the tea and not the bear spray, watching out the moonroof, waiting and waiting for the darkest hour or two to fall.

While it all sounds beautifully romantic and perfect, which it was, being at the edge of a river in the middle of the countryside at dusk as bears emerge from a long winter isn’t the most relaxing thing I have ever experienced, but the specialness in it is far from lost on me. These are some of my favourite weeks of my life.

A chaotic, messy time

The ugliest time

My life this time of the year always feels so chaotic and messy. There’s so much messy, dustiness, and crazy weather. Gale force winds, hail, snow and sun within a couple hours. Clouds blow low overhead at unbelievable speed. I think a lot of this feeling is the dramatic temperature swings. The sun is so hot, but by nightfall I’m bringing all my plants back inside and experiencing the most excruciating pain in my ears because of the cold wind while on a short run.

In Yellowknife, the ugliest time of the year for me was May. The aurora was all but gone, gravel filled the streets, dog poop any trail or sidewalk, and nature was just a snowless, dry mess lacking colour or life. I hated it. I could never get out of Yellowknife fast enough when aurora season ended.

I was expecting something similar now in Whitehorse, but it was far less so. The end of April was a little rough, but street sweeping started in March and continued quickly along, and that sort of… ‘ugly’ in nature just never really happened. The snow would melt and vibrant lichen and moss already seemed to be thriving. River ice loosened it’s grip and the vibrant teals and blues never looked more beautiful. New growth on evergreen trees seemed to be everywhere.

“There’s just nowhere else I’d rather be right now.”

My mornings now are basking in the eastern sun on my patio with my coffee, and over half the day later, the aurora still appears faint against the twilight northern sky too.

The ugliest time has also always been lightened by the return of the birds to the north. The return of the swans was a spectacular and addictive experience for me this year, and if you’ll ever come to Whitehorse in April or early May, you cannot miss a visit to Swan Haven and the opportunity to chat or walk with expert Jukka Jantunen, which of course we did a few times.

With my mamma bear safely back in the scorching southern heat, I’ve fallen back into my night owl ways.

The last week of evenings for me have been out in the countryside late into, and well through, the night. Hours of hours of chasing the most beautiful light, sweet smells of the forest, and innocent, quiet exploration through forests, along shorelines, and gravel roads. I haven’t felt such a love of life, curiousity and inspiration like this in such a long time, and at the heels of what has traditionally been my least favourite time of the year is both so unexpected and very, very welcome.

The whole family together

Walking right back into winter

“Walking…”, I can hear my mummy murmur from here, with a… gently unimpressed expression on her face. Probably about the same expression when she’d see my high school report cards… variations of “Seems satisfied with minimal effort. Could do better.”, or when she’d get home from yoga at 10:30am this past summer and there wasn’t a green smoothie waiting for her on the counter yet because one of us slept in, again.

So, this was more of a hike than a walk, and it was a little longer than perhaps originally promised.

My mamma bear was up for a visit the last little while, right at the turn of spring. And when we weren’t assembling some smaller IKEA goodies that made the trip up with her (I love you, Air North, for your two free checked bags policy), we endlessly explored the countryside, went on long neighbourhood walks, claimed ownership of the park swings, and played tag-you’re-it in a 70 sq/m apartment right before bed. I’m far, far behind on blogging, but with a full heart and memory (cards).

Signs of spring

Just so quickly overnight, winter lost it’s grip. Daytime temperatures recently have been well above 0°C. There was even a light rain a couple of nights ago.

I’ve taken the cover off my patio furniture and enjoyed my first morning coffee there, and the temptation to begin seeds inside is overwhelming. The streets are dry and the gravel sweeper has already been by, and I put an abrupt end to my car’s transformation from ‘Star White’ to ‘Earth Brown’ with her first wash of the year.

“It [the aurora] just makes you feel so small.”

Over a couple of nights, we had some drives north up the beautiful Klondike Highway, chasing clear sky and separation from approaching cloud banks. Stars would momentarily disappear, and in those moments the outline of a mountain rising from the side of the highway towered above us.

The aurora started gently but grew quickly, wiping away any doubt that it could actually fill half the sky as the tourism magazines love to show. On nights of such perfection, it was refreshing to turn the car off, walk out to the lake and not look back for a few hours. The winds were persistent in their harsh gusts, but the warm temperatures let them be more beautiful than painful. In the end, the hours passed far too quickly. 4am arrives fast.

March magic

The weather has been such an intimate part of my nights in Whitehorse. It has given the aurora chase a new meaning for me, and I have found so much more love for the process and the journey because of the challenge and opportunity from the weather here.

Our weather moves very quickly and changes very quickly. It adds such a special dynamic to the aurora chase, a further depth. The feeling of reaching clear sky after a drive or seeing the aurora appear in a break in the clouds is an incredible feeling. It’s a real magic that differs so greatly from wide open clear skies. It is a mystery and one that matches the mystique of the aurora herself.

For all of the nights of having our location determined by the weather, this night was not one of those. We left town under clear sky, and drove west under clear sky the entire way out.

We arrived to a beautiful, almost invisible-to-the-eye, arc of aurora across the northern horizon, and yet, it seemed almost inconsequential against this surreal beauty of the stars, the mountains and frozen lake.

That timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The time to soak up such a sky was just enough, and then the aurora danced, and danced, and danced.

Finally as our night with the aurora wound down, the moon rose in the south east. A warm glow creeped up in the sky, and the softest orange light began kissing the sides of mountains.

While we drove back to town, we couldn’t help but to stop at the edge of the highway to gaze at the rising orange moon through binoculars, and further along stopping to say an early morning hello the wild horses.