comedy and tragedy

The point of this blog is to share a small bit of our lives living here in a northern town and sharing our adventures and thoughts as we discover more about what living here entails. This weekend was a bittersweet mix of such a life.
On Saturday The Man and I decided to go for a casual stroll on the trail around the lake just behind our apartment. It's a lovely walk that includes a boardwalk winding through wooded thickets, a bridge across a creek that feeds into a nearby river, lovely views of the lake and waterfowl feeding in the shallows, climbs up wooden staircases to an overlook of the lake and view of the town, chances to munch on wild cranberries, blueberries, currants and rosehips and simply, an enjoyment of all that a walk in the woods should offer. Although it is close to town, portions of the trail feel as though they might be miles away and provide a nice solitary respite from living in a population centre.
Sometimes we've brought our cameras and binoculars and have snapped many photos (yet to be developed, sorry) of plants and animals we've enjoyed seeing but for this walk we left it all behind, ensuring of course, that we would see something we'd wished we had the binoculars or camera for.
Not 5 minutes down the trail, after pausing to watch a small flock of LBJs (little brown jobs, or small, unidentifiable brown birds -especially so sans binoculars) flit through the alders and from the upper branches of one spruce tree to another, we were distracted by the sounds of something falling through the foliage. The Man looked up, and expecting to see a red squirrel throwing down spruce cones for later storage and munching, said as plainly as if he was pointing out mail in a mailbox, "It's a bald eagle." Following his gaze I looked up to see the adult eagle calmly peering down at us from a spruce bough not 30ft away. And of course, we didn't have a camera! Amusingly, what we had heard was the bird defacating and the glop falling and splatting on the foliage below. (Thankfully, not on us.) It was a good thing though, for we likely wouldn't have noticed the eagle otherwise.
The bird watched us for a moment or two until I slowly removed my sunglasses for a better look. That must have been enough attention for the bird, who then turned slowly and swooped down over and across the lake, suprising a small group of ducks who quacked and skittered for cover as the eagle passed over.
After this lovely sighting the walk was going to be memorable enough but it was truncated unexpectedly around the next bend in the trail when we discovered a portion of the boardwalk had been set on fire and was still smoldering. While The Man began digging up the burning boards and peat, assisted momentarily by 500ml of water from a passing cyclist's water bottle, I returned to our apartment for a bucket and a hammer. While I was gone, the cyclist helpfully refilled his bottle from the lake but as 500ml at a time wasn't going to do much for the effort, he continued on his way after a few friendly words.
I hauled 4 or 5 buckets of water up from the lake and The Man dug up the fire pit and ripped out a few more boards to expose the bits of fire slowly snaking under the boardwalk and into the burning peat. Within about 30 minutes the fire was completely out and the area was sufficiently soaked and muddy, as were we unfortunately. We walked back up the hill to our apartment and rewarded ourselves with bowls of chocolate ice cream.
The Man made a phone call to the town office to let them know about the fire, but as it was the weekend, there was no answer and as the fire was out, he decided to wait until this morning to let them know there would be some repairs needed for that section of the trail.

Yesterday afternoon we learned that the fire we put out may have been one of a few drunken stops by a group of youth that ended tragically in a drowning down by the town dock shortly before we'd left for our walk. We had heard sirens shortly before we left but didn't know what they were in response to. On previous walks on the trail around the lake we've seen evidence of past fires, all within a short stretch that is easily accessed from a cutline leading down to the trail from a single street on one side of the lake (the street that runs past our apartment). We've seen trees hacked at for their bark or branches, ashes and half burned branches and scattered beer cans and bottles nearby on the trail. On one occasion midday, I passed a couple too drunk to stand or speak clearly but determined to finish their bottle and mumble to each other as they lay in a thicket along the trail.
We've not heard more about the drowning other than that the group of youth that had been drinking decided to go for a swim and a young woman began having trouble. Two of her friends tried to pull her up and out onto a barge moored at the dock but she sank under and they somehow lost hold. As of yesterday her body still hadn't been found.

Tragedies like these are of course, not unique to small northern towns, but it is in small centres that such events are likely to somehow connect, however directly or indirectly, to more of the residents, whether through direct involvement, relationship or as in our case, perhaps simply through other indirect consequences influencing perfect strangers.
Likewise, seeing people drunk on the street, or passed out in the bushes, is simply more likely when the living centre is small and activity concentrated to one main street or a few park trails, for instance, as compared to large cities where similar events occur, but the average citizen won't encounter them directly.

This morning I have seen a fire engine and a few police vehicles pass by as they drive down our town's main street. I hope that they have recovered the body. I don't know the woman that drowned, nor her friends and family that are undoubtably suffering the pain and loss of such a horrible event and I am saddened to think of their hurt.
This morning the LBJs are also flitting among the sunlight and shadows of the birch trees just outside my window and the rising sun is gaining strength and breaking up the fog that covered the hills and lake this morning. Behind the birds and past the trees on the other side of the main street I also I have a small view of a hill leading away from town and the scattered birch and poplar trees are bright yellow among the spruce. The wind breezing past my window is fresh and cold in contrast to the warm sun on the trees. Life is bittersweet sometimes.

It's official. We have darkness.

After almost 2 months of 24hr daylight, we finally have darkness. A whole hour of it and some civil twilight on either side. (The Man informed me that civil twilight occurs when the sun dips below the horizon but doesn't descend more than 6 degrees.)

Do check out this site. It provides not only astronomical information for your locale but for any others you might be interested in. The best part of it is at the bottom of the page (after choosing stargazing and your city of interest) where the earth's shadow is shown. If you check in occasionally throughout the day you can watch it slowly progressing around the globe.

I copied this image taken at 8AM my time this morning.

It's a bit astonishing how heavily populated (and artificially lit) areas show up while they are in complete darkness. Look how large cities in southeast Asia show up! Until just recently the top of that shadow was just passing below where The Man and I live. Now it's brushing by ever so slightly and more so each day. I've also noticed that Antarctica is finally getting some sun and is progressing to longer and longer days as ours shorten.

A few months from now and I'll be posting photos of the aurora borealis taken during the (dark) daytime hours.

It's lovely honey. I'm just so thankful I don't have to wear it.

Subtitle: What hues are you?

A quick story before coming to the point of this post:
At an early age it was apparent to me that girls who were overly concerned with their new dresses and other clothing, staying clean and being pretty had far less fun than those who were willing, as I was, to climb that tree, get in that creek, risk the mud and catch those frogs (turtles, crayfish, etc…). Likewise, while pursuing those activities I found that running shoes, jeans and t-shirts were far more practical and comfortable than tights (shudder!) and dresses. Perhaps I romanticized my own image of a tom-boy but I likewise began to refuse all apparel associated with my vision of weak, scared girly girls. Out were any shades of pink or other pastel colours. Shoes could only be boys’ (as the girls’ shoes were always white or pink) and legs were only to be covered with pants, never skirts. I even refused to join the girl guides in grade 5 when I discovered that blue dresses with hemlines near the knee were the rule and pants were not allowed. (Thankfully, for girls like I was, now the rule seems generally to be simply blue clothing selected from an assortment of approved casual apparel.)

Since those early years, I’ve found that dresses aren’t the torment they once were and I happily own and wear them on occasion although my favourite pants and jeans get worn far more often. My closet contains a few shirts that one might otherwise label a pastel colour but by and large, my wardrobe is still dominated by the cool side of the spectrum and by deep dark rich colours (e.g. navy, burghundy, deep purple, black, deep green etc..). With the exception of a fleece sweater that I’d describe as a dark cranberry and was once called pink by a dear friend (who became momentarily less dear as I protested the pink label with great enthusiasm and shock at her mistake), I own NOTHING pink.

I think I look better in strong colours and that light ones wash me out. (Even my wedding dress wasn’t white for that reason! Why bend to a fad set by Queen Victoria and wear white when so many other colours suit better!?)

And I admit it, I simply don’t care for pink. In my mind, it will forever be associated with Barbie, Mary Kay Cosmetics and an unwillingness to step off the pavement out of one’s high heels into hiking boots and a back country trail.

So last week, when out of the blue (so to speak) The Man asked me if I liked pink, I snorted my tea out through my nose and aghast, denied such a ridiculous notion. His face fell and I immediately realized that he’d bought me something pink for my birthday. I think I did a pretty poor job of trying to make him feel better without outright embracing the notion of a pink addition to my wardrobe. He didn’t say much and I felt sort of badly. (But PINK! ? Gah! It’s sort of like me asking him to wear pleated slacks. With a Hawaiian print shirt.)

However, because I love him, I decided that I would TRY (ever so hard) to wear whatever it was that he had bought. (At least once.)

So it was with some relief that I opened my birthday gift to discover that the fuschia/bubble gum pink gift was a Thermarest camping mattress and not a new blouse! It coordinates with my red down sleeping bag in a cheesy, Valentine’s day sort of way, which makes me think of chocolate (a good thing if chocolate can be had) and most important (obviously) it’s entirely functional: It will keep my backside insulated from the cold ground and is designed for winter camping, it doesn’t have a big blister in it as my other (deep green & black) mattress that I bought myself years ago does and it packs down smaller and lighter than my other mattress. It’s a GOOD thing! (as Martha Steward might say in her pastel coloured blouse).

Perhaps I may start associating this particular shade of pink, with the pleasures of camping and hiking. Just maybe!

Only a day's drive away...

Yesterday was one of those days where family members phone you up to wish you well and ask you how it feels to be aging. It always feels rather like the day before they phone when I was officially a year younger.

To celebrate this particular milestone and, in my view more importantly, a much needed holiday for The Man, we took advantage of a long weekend and went on a short road trip (by our standards at least). During this “short” trip, we managed to pass over the arctic circle twice and travel over 2000km by the time we arrived back home. The woman who checked our rental vehicle in thought she’d made an error while calculating our mileage. We reassured her that she hadn’t lost her math skills and yes, we’d enjoyed our drive.

The scenery was beautiful and it was wonderful to see such diversity of gorgeous country within a day’s drive of home. We ferried over three rivers, drove through tundra, taiga and forest (and did some berry picking –yum!) along a looooong gravel highway taking us through multiple mountain ranges until we finally stopped driving south and hit pavement and our turnabout point at Dawson City, YT. We toured through town and wandered through shops looking at the touristy gold rush kitsch and lovely log cabin homes back up the hill from the main streets. I particularly enjoyed watching the swirling blue eddies of the Klondike spinning by as they converged with and became the muddy waters of the fast flowing Yukon.

The Alaskan border beckoned and as we were so close, we decided to drive a further 120km or so to the border via the Top of the World Highway. There are a few white-knuckle, guard rail-absent turns beside precipitous drops along the way but as I wasn’t the one driving, I quite enjoyed it! We drove halfway before stopping to camp and got up early to complete the drive before other vehicles were likely to be on the road after the border opened. The sun was just peeking through the mountain tops and as it climbed higher, it illuminated the heavy grey clouds in changing shades of pink, orange and yellow. The light was soft, the air fresh and to our great pleasure, some of the local fauna put in an appearance.

Before descending back down to Dawson we had seen a family group of 3 grizzlies, between 15 and 20 caribou (including bulls, cows and a calf) and even a porcupine which waddled away and refused to turn around for a proper photo. The bears behaved and did us the favour of reappearing on our return route when we had cameras at the ready and our photos didn’t record blurry bear bums bouncing away in the distance as at our first encounter.

By the end of our trip a cow moose, a fox, mink, shrew, multiple rabbits, as well as ground and red squirrels had also been checked off our list. Many of the birds we saw flitted away before we could get a look at them but among the many Canada jays, herring gulls, ravens and grouse we also saw a red crossbill, and saw and heard ptarmigan (what fantastically weird calls they have!). To top off our bird sightings was a group of sandhill cranes foraging along the banks of the Peel River. Although unlikely, it was a bit thrilling to think that we might have seen these very birds flying over our home in Saskatchewan before all of us migrated north.

And no, we didn’t actually cross the border to Alaska as we didn’t want to wait the hour before it opened. The Man hopped across the barricade for a photo while I wondered when the guards would come out to shoo him back over.

Oh, the travesty!

This week the Man’s job requires him to carry a cell phone with him at all times.

*Yes, we know: This is absolutely shocking news.*

(Albeit to him, more so than to you.)

And not only must he keep the cell phone charged and turned on, he’s EXPECTED TO USE IT.
Of course, you reader, must empathize with him. He, who eschews all things technological when he can, being put upon this way. And, this is in addition to a requirement to also use …

wait for it…

a satellite phone and a GPS on frequent occasions.

(The Man would now have me remind you that both have failed when needed and it was only because he had of course, brought his compass that things turned out all right.)

However, now that The Man finds himself not only regularly using a computer and watching old versions of The X-Files on television now and then but also using the (deep breath) C-E-L-L-U-L-A-R phone, and other such atrocities, he’s concerned that this signifies he may next find himself wearing ….

slacks.

Of course, I laughed uproariously when he told me this (as did he) and only later remembered that a garment bearing suspicious similarity to slacks was, in fact, imposed upon him at our wedding and is currently hanging in his closet. (Although, thankfully they aren't quite the same styling as sported by our Rock, Paper, Fist gang above.)

Sorry darling, but your worst fears are being realized.

Next, it might be polyester…

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.

Adjusting to apartment living...

After performing well for the past week or so since we got our line hooked up, our phone has mysteriously decided to stop working. No dial tone -only loud static.
After fiddling with all the plugs and walking back and forth a few times to local pay phones to test it, as instructed by the phone company, I had to ask for someone to come to our apartment to check the phone line. Although our building is secure, according to the landlord, the outside buzzer doesn't work and so tenants frequently prop the outside door open when expecting visitors. Since I didn't know exactly what time to expect the repair person this morning, I walked downstairs to latch the front door open so that I wouldn't have to spend my morning sitting outside waiting for them to come by.

Walking back up one of our two disgustingly dirty apartment stairwells, I was attacked by not one, but twenty dustbunnies who commonly lie in wait among the dirt and gravel that line the stairs. I barely escaped with clean lungs and a light coating of dust after fighting my way through. I had had enough! Armed with a broom, dustpan and garbage bag, I ventured back to conquor them all. The dirtier it gets, the less people seem to care, thought I (as evidenced by the cigarette butts and miscellaneous garbage that had been growing in number over the past few days.) But I DO!

No sooner had I swept two flights of stairs, thrown out the bag of garbage and dustbunnies and returned triumphant to our apartment to close the door, only to hear the tell-tale sound....of a broom sweeping the stairwell!

Gah!

I went out and spoke with the girl doing the sweeping to ask how often the stairs get swept. "Twice a week", she said brightly.

No. I don't think so. Those bunnies reproduce quickly, but given the size of the population I'd just exterminated, they'd been at it for longer than a week. I explained that I'd just swept, not knowing how often management did so and that the dirt had been driving me crazy. Perhaps she could mop the stairwell instead of resweeping?

She didn't say but instead, inquired rather hopefully as to whether I'd swept the other stairwell too?