You know you are in the far north when...

It’s still summer (technically before the fall equinox) and you wake up to SNOW on the ground outside (and in the air currently blowing by your window).

The local temperature is 27 degrees Celsius colder today than the temperature in the Canadian town you grew up in.

You are counting down the days till the sun won't rise (note the new ticker in the sidebar) and until you can drive your vehicle onto the arctic ocean (!!).

Choices at your local grocery store inclue ground muskox, frozen arctic char or caribou jerky.

All the local buildings are up on pilings to keep the ground under them from melting.

Skidoos are parked in your apartment’s parking lot along with (or instead of) the cars and trucks .

It’s perfectly normal to go shopping for a skidoo at your local grocery store (where else?!).

Polar bears and caribou may wander through or near your town. (A polar bear did so more than a month ago; I'm looking forward to seeing the caribou although they are already in the area according to local hunters who have been stocking their freezers with them.)

Wool clothing has been de rigueur since JULY.

And did I mention that it's still summer and it's SNOWING?

Rorschach test anyone?

Nothing to say...so here are some pictures TM took last week:

The seasonal change is so fast here! Since these photos were taken only a week ago, most of the deciduous trees have completely shed their leaves and as of two days ago, the mountains in the west are covered in snow. TM is just itching to get out his snowshoes!

Some people have all the luck

I'll have to tell The Man to look more closely at debris sticking out from the river banks as he boats upriver today and in the future, as he might just be staring at bones of an ice age animal and not simply old branches or tree roots.

As reported by CBC news, a man had an astounding find at a location about 100 km from our home as he was walking along a riverbank and found bones (including a skull), skin and even guts protruding from the permafrost. A paleontologist is going to have a look at the remains and the location the animal was found and suspects that the find is likely a steppe bison–the same animals represented in Paleolithic paintings on the cave walls at Lascaux and more commonly unearthed west of our region in what was once Eastern Beringia. (Follow the link above to Lascaux for wonderful photos of the paintings. Eg. Look in the Main Gallery for paintings such as the Back to Back Bison or in the area of The Shaft of the Deadman for a depiction of a speared bison fatally wounding a man.)

To the right is an image from a museum exhibit of a specimen recovered in Alaska.

Living here just gets better and better!

Um.. Er... Do I HAVE to?

A note to my readers: This post has nothing to do with living in the north.
After creating my last post and its annoying title (to me, at least), I simply needed to get out a wee rant about blogging and advertising the results of one's supposed creativity.

Is it just me, or does anyone else HATE having to think up titles for blog posts, or even subject headings for email? I always feel as though I should be able to think up something witty that sums up the message in one brilliant label. Most of the time I have difficulty and can't think up anything that is remotely witty or properly descriptive but yet the title or subject box likewise can't (or shouldn't) remain empty.

I find this ANNOYING.

And in a similar vein, I always hated trying to come up with titles for artwork that I'd created in high school art classes. I understand why there are so many "untitled" pieces of artwork in galleries if those artists are annoyed at having to summarize their piece in one word or in a short phrase and so leave out a title altogether but as much as a similar frustration may keep artists from titling their pieces, I admittedly do get annoyed when viewing a piece that is untitled.
A title (or subject heading for an email) IS useful to the viewer or reader of the piece. It allows the reader to understand what the artist was getting at and particularly for blogs or emails, to prioritize whether they want to invest their time in viewing or reading the piece, put it off for later or to ignore and delete it altogether.

As much as I can acknowledge this and also appreciate informative, witty titles to email and blog posts, it is a part of blogging that I despise when creating my own posts.

So, in summation, be forewarned ye readers: I make no promises about the originality, wittiness or even existence of properly titled posts, now or forever in the future.

Oh, and the same thing goes for labels that blogger so kindly invites bloggers to add to their posts. Uh, blogging? annoying things about blogging? uncreative titles? Nah. I'm leavin out the labels for this one!

Er, okay. Rant over.

The times, they are a changin'

The sun is now setting and rising at times more typical of southern climes (as of today, the sun is rising at 7:25AM and setting at 10:18PM ) and daylength will continue shortening until we reach the perpetual darkness of December. (Although I love sunlight, this seems an exciting part of this adventure too.)
Autumn is also now in full swing and night temperatures have been dropping to just below freezing. Today’s high may reach 11C but for now (middayish), we’re just at 6C and TM is celebrating the return to wooly sweater weather and relishing the thought of coming winter snows.
Although I miss the fall colours and smells of Ontario’s hardwoods, the north has its own fall magic. The blueberry and bearberry bushes are shades of red, burghundy and purple and the birch, poplar and willow provide wonderful contrasts of yellow against the red shrubs and the green spruce. The familiar spicy smell of decaying leaves is just beginning as the first of the poplar leaves begin to fall and settle among the shrub layer and over the mosses and lichens. The local fireweed plants remind me of the flame-licked colours of Ontario’s sumac: brilliant reds giving way to bright orange and yellows all on the same plant or even on the same leaves.

TM took this photo on his way home from work on Friday.
Scenes like these make me smile!

And this does too:
I love watching the ravens. I suppose most residents here regard them as pests as they’ll soon rip open any garbage bags left out and unattended but I love them for their curiosity, intelligence and wonderfully varied calls. Sometimes as in this picture, a raven will perch on our balcony and peer at our bikes or look in the windows. I’m sure I’ve watched one chattering to its own reflection sounding as though it was gargling water. This was the first time I had a camera handy when one paid a visit but I only managed the single photo before my movement alerted it to my presence and it flew off.

Yesterday from our balcony, we watched an interesting interaction between a red squirrel and a raven in a nearby birch tree. The raven watched the squirrel as it dashed up and down the trunk opposite the raven, once almost landing on the bird as it raced around and leaped among the branches, occasionally stopping to nibble at bunches of leaves or dried catkins. The raven appeared to try pecking at the squirrel once or twice and vocalized occasionally with warbling croaks but though the squirrel could have made a getaway to other trees or across the ground, it always returned to the trunk in the vicinity of the raven. Eventually the bird left and the squirrel immediately explored the area of the branch the raven had been perched on.