Summer Ruminations -A word from ManNorth

I have often said that the North is a fine place to live but I wouldn’t want to work there, for when one works the mind is focused on work and little else. Seldom do we ever take time to step back from our personal grindstone and, according to Keats, “look into the fair and open face of Heaven”. In the cities far to the south I have met people who have never left their place of birth, who find no need to step outside their safety zones, who have built for themselves a wall so high that even if they had the inclination to do so, could not climb over; who look but do not see. Many people look, but few ever see; there is a subtle difference here. For seeing is akin to experiencing, and when you experience something, you understand it more fully and completely. If one spends all of life in a city, then the full extent of one’s experience is limited to that city. In a city, any city, one sees houses with televisions and central heating, grocery stores and hospitals, cars and trains. There is nothing at all wrong with that, of course, other than the fact that one’s experiences will be extremely limited. One’s worldview, one’s belief system will be skewed. But then believing is seeing.
People in Winnipeg believe that they live in the coldest city in Canada; this claim has been supported by the news networks too, hence the nickname “Winterpeg”. Yet all it would take is for one to do a little research before they see that this isn’t true. (For those who don’t have the time for this, Yellowknife is the city with the coldest winters, with an average nighttime temperature during December, January and February of -29.9 degrees Celsius. It is also the coldest city with a mean annual temperature of -5.4 degrees Celsius. Winnipeg, in fact has the sunniest winters and a mean annual temperature of +2.6.) But, even if this myth were true, the full extent of most people’s outdoor experience is standing at the bus stop for 20 minutes while rushing from one heated building to another.
It saddens me to see how urbanized we have become, and Canada is one of the most urbanized nations in the world. In our pursuit of happiness, our quest for the good life, we have left something behind, some essential part of us, our ability to see. And to fill this gap we have surrounded ourselves with icons of our own creation.
But, lest the reader think that I am being overly critical of the urban dweller, allow me to really stick my neck out and say that no more is this lack of seeing apparent than in the north. Case in point, years ago while I was preparing to leave on a six month winter expedition along the west coast of Hudson Bay, a young teacher stopped me in Churchill, Manitoba, offering me her insight and expertise. I listened kindly for a moment to her words of wisdom, but when I had asked about her experience outdoors, she said rather emphatically, “Well I live here!” Yes, I thought, you live here, in this house with a television, central heating, a grocery store and a hospital next door. You have a train to bring in supplies and daily jet service should you need it. You have all the amenities of the south. You also have a mortgage, 3 children to raise, car payments and utilities and in order to pay for all this you work. I have witnessed this same scenario unfold numerous times during my travels in the north, the most recent of which was just the other day. A colleague of mine was talking about the weather and summed up by saying to me, “You haven’t lived here long enough to know the weather like I do. I live here. I know.” While it is true that he has lived here longer than I have, what he failed to see is that weather is a global phenomenon, that the weather in Northern Town is not unique, that I am older than him and therefore I have seen more “weather” than he has. He could not see this. He lives in a house with a television, central heating, a grocery store and a hospital next door. He has two monster trucks and a dog, a hefty mortgage and bills to pay. In order to afford this he has to work. His house may be located in the north but he is really living in the south, with all the accoutrements of modern life.
The north of course is changing, has changed. It is no longer the Old North of my youth where a man could truly disappear for a year or more. The advent of modern transportation and telecommunications has shrunk the north. These days one wouldn’t think of traveling on the land without a GPS and Satellite phone. The north of today is filled with big screen televisions and satellite dishes, cell phones and the World Wide Web, cultural centres with weight rooms, swimming pools and saunas, hockey rinks and racket ball courts. In the stores you can find cans of pop and bags of chips as well as the latest fashions, and teens can walk the streets with their hats on backwards and iPods in their ears oblivious to the sounds of Nature. Just like in the cities.
We humans are cultural animals and we bring our culture with us where ever we go. This give and take of cultural diffusion is the common thread that binds us all together. But, I wonder how few will ever step back; leave their modern influences, their cultural idolatry, cut the umbilical cord of society’s infrastructure, and if only for a moment, wander free and unfettered. How can we ever see the true immensity of the natural world, or be humbled by that sweet solitude when we know in the back of our minds that society is just a phone call away?This weekend my wife and I are going canoeing, not far but far enough, to some distant hills across the lake. We will find ourselves “some pleasant lair of wavy grass” and just sit for a while and look out over the delta. I wonder what we will see.

© ManNorth, Summer, 2000

Sunday Stroll

On Sunday, ManNorth & I went snowshoeing for a few hours. I don't have time to tell the entire story so here are some pictures to do some of the job for me. We began by travelling along the length of a lake used in the summer as an airstrip for float planes. At the end of the lake we turned off onto a snow mobile trail that took us through forests of Dr. Seuss-like knobby spruce trees along a high ridge, down into a protected valley (where the trees were bigger and less misshapen) where we hopscotched between smallish pond sized lakes and the trail until we got out to an enormous lake framed by forested rocky outcrops on one side and almost barren rocky slopes on the other. We ventured out across the snow covered ice until we could see most of the lake and then turned around to rejoin our track for a short while until we found another track to take us part of the way back to our starting point at the float plane lake.

Travel was easiest along snow mobile trails, although we did slog across country, breaking trail through 2 feet of snow for part of our route, as my sore legs today can attest to. The balaclava I wore was designed to be used by someone riding a snow mobile, not by someone engaged in aerobic exercise, as I was on my snowshoes. Although it protected my nose from the biting wind nicely, I found myself needing to adjust it to get more air than I could intake through its screen over my mouth during the more strenuous parts of the trail.

A curious fox walking a circuitous route left a zig-zagging track as it explored unusual lumps of snow that could hide carcasses that could be scavenged.

ManNorth kept up quite a pace and was glad for his breathable wool clothing which showed off the frost he generated in the cold air.

We stopped for a break and had hot coffee, cheese & crackers at the edge of a narrow creek.

My snowshoes cast pretty shadows on the snow during our snack break.

With a better camera and lens, I might have been able to capture the many tiny cabins that line this lake. Most are shut up for the winter, although tell-tale snow mobile tracks suggest that some are visited occasionally, perhaps as winter camps during hunting or ice fishing excursions.

Flocks of redpolls flitted through the trees as we snow-shoed (sp?) along the trails. A group alighted in some alders and willows near us, giving us a chance to see them up close. The birds are unusually skittish, compared to birds in the south, and refuse to be called in, although I’ve tried “spishing” for them repeatedly. Of ten photos we took as the flock moved through the scrub, only one frame successfully captured on of the birds peering briefly at us before flying off with the rest of the flock.

Scattered occasionally under alder bushes was evidence that windblown alder seeds also provide food for redpolls. Look for the marks a wing made as a bird alighted (or flew away).

Foxes, birds and snow machines weren’t the only passers-by to leave trails in the snow. Our tracks cut across tiny sastrugi formed by the wind into pretty ridges and wave-like patterns in the snow covering the lakes.

A pair of meese

With intentions of stirring up thoughts of visiting us here in Northern Town, or perhaps just a wee bit of jealousy, here are a few photos ManNorth took yesterday from his office window.

What's outside your window?

Of insects and wildfires

July has been fairly warm in our locale (Yes V., I'm glad I brought my summer clothes!) and The Man has been keeping busy flitting about the countryside in helicopters, boats and pickup trucks. He took these photos last week while training some firefighters and keeping tabs on the wildfire situation:

(Yes, that IS snow in that last one on the right. The permafrost is pretty close to the surface although it was 27C here the other day, so I can't imagine much snow is now left.)

And closer to the (unburned) ground, here are a few photos snapped while I spent a morning with The Man and a large bottle of DEET. In order of appearance by common name and latin name, respectively: Indian Paintbrush -Castilleja raupii, Northern Labrador Tea -Ledum decumbens, Labrador Lousewort -Pedicularis labradorica, WomanNorth -Dousedindeetum fewbitesum.

I really do need to have a look at YouTube one of these days in order to show you the video associated with this last photo which I clipped from the digital video, if only for the deafening buzz of the hundreds of mosquitos risking imminent squishing by getting fresh with me. In situations like this, I have nothing but good things to say about insect repellants that contain 98% DEET although they have melted little holes in the plastic coating of my binoculars where my fingers rest and I hate putting repellant on my face. I think that concentrations this high are now illegal for current manufactured repellants, and probably for very good health reasons, but we happened to have a few bottles of the old powerful stuff stashed with our gear. The stuff worked well, although the headnets did come out for a little while until the sun climbed a bit higher and the insect numbers dropped in the heat.

Thankfully, the constant winds have been keeping the insect numbers quite tolerable in town so I can leave my mosquito netting at home when I walk to get our mail.

However, a recent walk around this lake

just behind our apartment (and bordering town) was quite tolerable only after patronizing the makers of DeepWoods Off! and downing my mosquito head net.