IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WEATHER....

My family lived in the Queen Charlotte Islands when I was young. Like, kindergarten young. I remember moss on trees, fields filled with dandelions, abandoned Haida artifacts in the woods, and that we all thought we were living North of anywhere.

 Now that I am North of almost everything it seems that Haida was so far south in comparison. In fact, the other day we drove South to get to Alaska (the whole way I sang "we're going south to Akaska. We're going south to the Northern zone...")

One of the other things I remember about my time in Masset on the Queen Charlottes was that my father always said, if you don't like the weather just wait ten minutes.  The same seems to be true of the Yukon.

It was cloudy, raining, snowing, and sunny so far today. I figure the sunset will be equally confused if I manage to stay up for it. I am not sure people here remember the weather in the rest of the country, and how one can have days and days of snow, or rain.... Or even occasionally sun!

But it seems like the North is a place where the weather is amazingly good. I am convinced there is very little precipitation here compared to the rest of the country. I am also convinced that the difference between when it snows and when it rains and when it is sunny is far less of a shift than I am used to experiencing.

 Of course, I am onto almost full time daylight now... Not really, but for all intents and purposes it is daylight while I am awake. So there is that aspect of things which might be colouring my feelings about the weather.

You see, between it being relatively nice and dry all the time, and it being daylight all the time, there is a lot of energy to spare. My body and mind are more awake for longer and although it is hard to fall asleep.... It is also interesting when you still feel like going out to start doing something in the evening at 8 or 9.

I wonder what the opposite does. Would I never want to do anything if it wa dark all the time?

Anyway, just another myth dispelled. The North is not nearly as horrible as I always suspected. In fact, aside from the tropics I have never been anywhere I enjoy the weather so much.

THE OVERLAND TRAIN

The Yukon is a new place.

It is odd really, as you drive across Canada you actually drive across time. Way back in the day Samuel Champlain and the bunch settled the East Coast for France. Wars ensued and British came. Famines ensued and Irish came. And eventually everyone moved West. And so with every kilometre travelled the towns were settled later and later.

It was not until the turn of the previous century that these Europeans, and in fact people from all over the world decided to brave the Chilkoot Pass and head North in search of Gold.

A few thousand years earlier it was the Tlingit who came from Russia in chasing Mastodon across Beringia.

People were not the natural inhabitants of the Yukon.

That gives you some pause. Africa has civilizations that stretch back tens of thousands of years, Europe looks more like 5,000. The Tlingit who did stay here, fishing and hunting, were few and far between - and it was not until the lure of Gold that people really began settling in.

To be fair, it is not easy to get from here to there when you are up North.

Dog sleds were probably the most effective means of winter transit for hundreds of years, and even dogs don't want to pull a sled when the temperatures go to -40.

The transit museum here in Whitehorse is a really interesting place to see how it went from dog sled and overland hiking, through canoe and steamship, onto rail and air, and finally cars began to be built that could withstand the conditions. But, as the museum explains, nothing built anywhere else worked effectively here. So even if you were rich enough and dumb enough to by a Ford truck back in the early 1900's - where were you going to get parts?

Besides, there was not a highway to be found until World War Two and some interesting territorial disputes over Alaska when the US sent in the Engineers.

One of my favourite vehicles was the Letourneau Land Train that the US engineers used to get stuff around up here. It is huge and unlike anything I had ever seen.

It all makes you think about how transportation is necessary for communication, for supplies, for life... I guess everyone knows this - but it is so easy and so taken for granted back in New Brunswick that one never stops and thinks - what if there were no way a truck could get through? What if there were no highways?

How quickly would society start to fall apart without a means of transportation? And how much is a place still defined as "wild" when what we really mean is that it is hard to get there.

Ocean Vs Mountain

I have been pondering this since coming to the North.

When I was young I lived on both coasts, my father was in the Navy. Mostly though, I have lived within a half day drive of the Atlantic all of my life. After High School I ran away to central Canada; Ontario and Quebec.. but I missed it. I still remember each and every drive back east when I would see the coast and smell the air - it was truly like coming home and it was magical.

But here is the thing...

I feel that way now in the Mountains. I feel this overwhelming sense of beauty, of awe, of wonder... it is hard to explain unless you have been to the Yukon - where all of the tallest mountains in Canada are, but I cannot turn around without running into some different mountain.

Here is a scene I plan on painting, the mountains as seen from Emerald Lake.

Perhaps more importantly though, here is the view from my hotel where I go to sleep every night and wake up every morning.

So here is what I figure... I think the feeling that signifies home, magic, goodness etc. is actually the feeling of Awe. Whether you stand in front of the pounding waves or at the base of a glacial mountain you are looking at something there is no way you can conquer. Something larger and more powerful than your self.

It puts a lot in perspective. Buildings change, people die, landscapes evolve.... but never in my lifetime will I notice a difference in the height of these mountains or the breadth of the ocean. In fact, those folks who built the Alaskan Highway in the 1940's, those sourdoughs who packed 2,000 pounds over the Dawson Pass in search of gold at the turn of the 19th Century, even those folks that walked across Beringia at the end of the Ice Age from Asia - all of them were looking at the same mountains.

And so I remain in awe of these vistas that transport me through time and space into a sense of being not only one with the universe, but of being a small part in the unfolding of the human story.

How humbling is that?

The Story So Far

There are times when life is sheer luck.
There are times when the planets align.
And there are times where you let go of things and arrange others to make sure the first two sentences are true...

This tale is a little of each.
My partner has worked long enough in their position that they were due for a Sabbatical. I had not yet started one job, was freelancing my other jobs and was on a contract that I could end early on my fourth job. In other words - I tend to arrange my life in such a way that I do lots of smaller jobs and have more freedom of opportunity.

She said we should go to the Yukon - hundreds of Latitudes above anywhere I had ever been - and I said yes.

First, a drive across the country. 6500km in nine days. It was amazing- truly amazing. Even though I have been in all of the provinces we drove through before, I had been a kid, and I have been on the East Coast so long that my measurement of reality has been defined by physical proximity.

We all do this - we think everyone is like us. We think every place is like ours. We forget that even in one country there are thousands of eco systems, hundreds of countries of origin, and I suppose millions of individual traditions that make up who we are. A person from the North of Saskatchewan is as different from a person from the South of New Brunswick as someone from the other side of the world.

And this country is huge. You can say 6500km and think of it as a small number - until you drive around Lake Superior. Drive from Winnipeg to Edmonton on the Yellowhead. Or drive the Alaskan Highway winding your way through the Rocky Mountains for days.

Then there is the Yukon, and the bustling wilderness city of Whitehorse - named because of the white manes of water rising above the Miles Canyon Rapids before you come into town. An area of the Yukon River that the native people were smart enough to portage, but the sourdoughs who came up here looking for gold used to traverse in their homemade boats... last night I stood at the place where the natives used to pull the bodies out and bury them.

This entire territory has less people in it than the city of Fredericton - where I began my adventures.

It is also situated in a valley between the snow capped northern rockies. It has the coldest water and the clearest air I have ever tasted. It is a mix of exciting newness and historical tradition. It has natives and immigrants from every nation on the planet living in seeming harmony.

And most importantly there is such a thing as Yukon Time! The closest thing I have ever found to Central American Time! When I was in Guatemala things were defined by the heat and the feelings - here it is the same, there is no rush, there is no reason to do things you do not want. There is opportunity for anything.

We really need to let go of some of the stressful things we think in the East. No one cares what you wear, no one cares what your makeup looks like, just be yourself and explore. That is what I have learned so far.