Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! And many happy holiday wishes to you all!

We have been thinking of you, our family and friends often. For those who got a Christmas card this year, I hope it arrived in time. For those that didn't, our apologies, Christmas arrived far more rapidly than we were prepared for! Yes, I realize it happens the same time every year, but 2009 has certainly flown by. We even took a special photo for an e-card, and even that didn't get sent!! So here it is.

I don't think this week has been a "typical" Christmas, but it was a lovely couple of days. Good food, good friends and great company. We enjoyed old and new traditions and way, way too much food. We've played games and taken doggie walks. We've probably had more to drink than we should, and we definitely gave each other too many presents! (yay!). The weather has been perfect - blue, sunny skies, a bit of snow and moderate temperatures.

It was definitely different without our family and friends back east. But as we sit here at the end of a very, very lazy Boxing Day, I can't help but be grateful for all of the hospitality we have received over the last few days. And am grateful for how lucky we are.

Best. Christmas Tree. Ever!

Last night we went and cut our Christmas tree from the woods behind our house. While surrounded by trees, finding a Christmas tree is no easy feat. For starters, several of the varietals up here smell like cat pee which, essentially, one just has to accept. Also, we're in the very northern boreal, so trees are generally very, very skinny and sparse, so you are really looking for the least sparse as compared to a full one. Finally, it is dark by like 4pm, so you are nearly always looking in the dark.

The alternative is a traditional tree for $60 at Canadian Tire. Sixty!! Again, we're like 90% boreal ecosystem.

And so, for several dog walks this week we scoped out trees. Few were even contenders, but we did find two and decided on one. We went out to cut it last night and Mike changed his mind - we were going after the other, significantly more challenging to reach, tree.

So off we went so Mike could hand cut a tree on the side of a cliff from underneath - with essentially no method but holding the tree to stay in place. Fun! Until the hand saw snapped. We trecked home, got the reciprocating saw and returned with a tree. Dragging it through the woods all old school and fun!

I would never suggest that looking at a tree from underneath, particularly one in a somewhat dense patch, may overstate how many branches there are on the top of the tree. I wouldn't say that, but I will add photos.

Regardless, this is our tree and we love it! And the hunt was a lot of fun!

Olympic Training

Today, we had a film crew at the preserve to get some Olympic footage. Each province and territory is responsible for a pre-medal ceremony production. This is a combination of live action and video and the Yukon will be on February 20th. (Mark your calendars).

I am pretty sure they are sending half the territory to be in the show, and the other half is represented on film.

Today, the artist creating the video was at the preserve to interview Bou. There is a funny balance with animals that have been bottle raised. They are perfect in that they are not afraid of people and they will let you get quite close. Having said that, they get really, really, really close and it is nearly impossible to get any kind of shot when they

are nuzzling against you, the camera, the vehicle - anything.

Bou spent a great deal of time nuzzling Celia and seemingly smelling her boots, legs, coat, arms. She nuzzled and nuzzled and nuzzled and I can only imagine how the footage is going to turn out. At one point, Celia was lying on her back in the snow with Bou rubbing her head and antlers across her belly.

Fortunately, no one lost an eye, and despite some antler/sweater/coat/ arm/leg tangling, nothing got damaged. I also think, the crew had a lot of fun!

Being loved by a caribou, there ain't nothing like it.

(Here are some photos of me and Bou with Bou behaving a lot like she did today)

No messing around

So, the ground has been relatively white since the end of October - but we have gotten very little cumulative snow. In well over a month, we have had no more than a centimetre or two. However, this is no way has slowed down the road work that takes place all winter long.

I have the impression that there are conditions particular to the temperature and the type of snow that we get that are different from Ottawa and require different road clearing techniques. For instance, leaving any snow

around at all, especially if it has been driven on and tracked will ensure it stays like that, frozen all winter. No thaw, no chance to fix. At least that is why I think I have been warned to get rid of the snow, any snow.

Yet still, when I came wheeling around the corner to our street this week, I was surprised to see an enormous pile of snow and ice resting in the middle - and was very glad to have been going slow enough to miss it!

As I mentioned, we haven't had any accumulation for weeks, but this has not prevented the city from scraping down to the core. Frankly, it kind of makes the streets like ice rinks, but they sure are smooth.

Hoar Frost

Every week our northern life seems to have a new surprise in store for us. Ice fog and hoar frost are just two of the newest additions to our Yukon vocabulary. Ice fog, it turns out, is literally ice-depositing fog. Think of it as the arctic equivalent of freezing rain with the added bonus of being as thick as pea soup.

Hoar frost, though related to ice fog, is a little more appealing. Yes, it makes the roads a bit slick and is virtually impossible to scrape off your windows, but man, is it beautiful. It ranges from fine and fuzzy like a peach, to coarse and feathery.

Hoar frost happens when exposed objects rapidly lose heat, becoming colder than the air around them. Moisture from the air is then deposited in the form of leafy ice crystals. Okay, I'm no meteorologist so here's a link to a good Wikipedia explanation. And here are a few pictures from a recent walk in our "back yard".

FireSmart

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to take part in some field work with Parks Canada. Although it was a bit of a departure from my normal desk job I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go back to one of my favourite places on the Chilkoot Trail.

Bennett, B.C. is situated on the south end of Bennett Lake and at the northernmost end of the Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site of Canada. During the 1897-1899 gold rush it was a bustling hub of up to 10,000 people known as Bennett City. Hopeful stampeders spent long winters building rough-hewn boats of all descriptions in anticipation of a spring launch towards Dawson and the Klondike goldfields.

Today, Bennett is all but abandoned. It is home to only 2, Walter and Edna Helm. The Helms spend a good part of their year in a quaint cabin on the old town site from which they operate a back-country trapline which has been the livelihood of Edna's family for generations.

The only structure from the gold rush period that still remains on the Chilkoot Trail is St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. It stands sentinel over the ruined building foundations, bottle and tin middens, and sandy lakeshore of this once burgeoning town. Its rustic wooden construction, though seemingly robust, is extremely vulnerable to fires, both natural and man-made.

In the past few years Parks Canada undertaken preventative measures through their FireSmart program to help reduce the risk of catastrophic damage. A combination of selective tree cutting, brush clearing and strategic burns are used to strategically reduce the amount of fuel available and redirect a fire should it strike.

This year's program involved: four of Parks Canada's fire crew, Jen, Charlie, Nick and Warren; Christine, the Chilkoot Trail patrol person who coordinated the operation; and me. With the promise of being "worked like a rented mule" I set out to lend a hand however I could. Mostly I spent the week dragging branches and 8' logs like, well, a rented mule. I shared a wall tent with lead hand Warren and learned an awful lot about what it means to work in the field every day. Let's just say I had to rewrite my definition of hard work.

I'd like to say that the work was its own reward but to be honest, nothing could top the 45 minute helicopter ride back to Whitehorse. I always thought that Yukon was scenic from the ground but nothing compares to seeing it from low in the air. Score one for professional development.

The benefits of short days

Our days are definitely getting shorter! Official sunrise this morning was 9:21 and sunset will be 4:12 with about an hour on either end where is it bright enough to still do things without a headlamp.

That may sound dramatic, and in some ways it is. But I have recently discovered some of the benefits of these short days.

The most obvious, naps and sleeping in is easy. Even Maui is relatively uninterested in going outside until late morning.

There are interesting phenomena attached to these short days. Driving to work one day, an enormous full moon hung in front of me while the spectacular blazing of the rising sun blinded me from behind, via my mirrors. Also there is lots of time to stargaze - and the complete darkness make the millions of stars incredible.

The real benefit, though, is getting to see sunrise and sunset. The sun makes the mountains glow pink and creates colours and shapes in the sky that are unbeatable. The sky glows; it is simply spectacular.

Last week I was driving to the office and had to pull over to take some photos (not that they do justice). The view was such that it literally took my breath away. Imagine that, getting to see the sunrise every day, a sunrise so pretty there is no

choice but to stop and enjoy.

Feeding

I got to feed the animals this week - for three days in a row! It was kinda awesome.

It was cold the first day, lovely the second and progressively colder the third. I got to feed with Mike and our neighbours (Dave, Susanne and Emma) the first day and my co-worker Clare the next two. It was all a ploy to get my vet and operations manager to FINALLY take a day off. It dubiously worked.

Feeding the animals is very cool. The animals are so happy to see you - literally, they run when they see you - even the lynx.

When it comes to feeding, the preserve is kind of like a great big farm. We haul hay and scoop pellets - just on an enormous scale. And, of course, the animals are very different and really spectacular to get close to. Also, between the hay and the pellets comes some less than ordinary opportunities - feeding the kestrels that we are rehabilitating, for instance.

Ironically, the part I struggle with the most is counting the animals. There is a real art to finding and counting the animals. They move, they hide, they blend into their surroundings. More than once, I had to loop around and around before finally finding all the animals I needed to. Imagine, an enclosure of 9 caribou and I couldn't find one!

Overall, though, I would say we did pretty good. I followed instructions very carefully and did everything I think Maria wanted us to do. The animals were happy, healthy and I only got locked into an enclosure once (in the caribou enclosure, Clare thought I had left, it was hilarious)!

Getting in there and getting my hands dirty, figuratively and literally, is a great way to remember why I work at the preserve. Certainly, I was not born to do manual labour for a living, but I'm really thrilled I get to do this once in awhile, and I think I just may make it a regular thing.

Muskox Art

We tried to create muskox art this week. It turned out being a pretty good lesson on what is not really going to work.

So in October I attended the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums conference in Edmonton and I paid, umm, enough money at a charity auction to buy Emma a pink and purple painting done by a red panda for Christmas. Ironically, Emma had been at the Toronto zoo that same weekend and saw her own red panda, which "is not a panda mommy, pandas are black and white."

We've had some substantial cost increases and have been brainstorming about fun ways to raise a little extra money, and we began to think about art done by the animals. In zoos, painting is used as a stimulus to keep the animals' mentally active. At the preserve, we don't have those same behavioral issues, we just think it's fun.

So, we bought the water soluable, non-toxic paints and we tested it out on Jesse, knowing how popular she is. (my staff also joke that the fastest way for us to raise money is to sell Mike Jesse-related items. Not helpful!)

We trudged out into the snow (perfect for washing away any paint), paper on plywood, camera in hand and some red and green paint. We brought Jesse into her own enclosure and tried to encourage her to "draw." We did get her to walk across the paint a couple of times, but only in an effort to get to more food. Turns out, we can't compete with all the grass in the enclosure! To move from one area that has been mowed down into grass heaven - and to have it all to herself - we had no chance (you can see the difference in the photos). If anything was painted at all, it was mainly Jesse's nose running across the page en route to more food.

Sigh. No art yet, but I think we have a pretty good idea now of what not to do, and some ideas for next time.

The Olympic Flame

The Olympic torch came through Whitehorse this week. It was landing by plane, to be run throughout town and was scheduled to go by the S.S. Klondike at 5:30 to arrive at Shipyards Park for 6pm with a party until 7pm.

Like so many other things, we were about to miss out on it. It's easy with life as busy as it is. But around 4 or so I called Mike and said we're going and so we both rushed home.

To set the stage, there are 2 main streets in Whitehorse - 4th Avenue and 2nd Avenue. First, I got stopped on 4th Avenue by...the torch! All traffic was stopped as the torch changed hands not far from me (ironically in front of McDonald's).

We grabbed Maui and headed up to Shipyards Park for the party and, alas, nearly missed the official arrival (again) as we got stopped on 2nd Avenue for quite awhile by the torch exchange!

There was quite a party when we eventually got to the park and it was a lot of fun. There were food vendors, bon fires, and sponsors handing out cow bells, flags, lights and free cokes. There were singers, dancers, artists, techno music and some speeches by dignitaries and others. It's pretty cool, apparently there is an artist traveling from city to city creating art, I didn't see close up and we were a bit late, but it appears to be variations of the women found on the torch flags and banners. The stage photo we've uploaded shows the painting underway and the banner to the left. It was presented immediately to the our mayor.

The mascots were on hand for photos, as were several torch bearers who were very happy to pose for pictures. There were also lots of dogs for Maui to sniff - which was great because she was not so sure about the mascots and not a huge fan of her cow bell. She did, however, love the gazillions of people loving her.

A definite highlight was getting to hold the torch, which are beautiful and surprisingly light. A little known fact, or perhaps just something not really thought about, it is the flame that is passed from person to person, not the torch. Most runners actually get to keep their torch.

It turns out, most runners have a corporate sponsor, often their employer, and that sponsor buys them their torch as a souvenir. Whitehorse being as small as it is, there were quite a few runners, most of whom were walking around with their torches post-run. We met a couple, including the final carrier, and posed for photos. The final torch bearer, Ramesh Ferris, is an inspirational soul who recently crossed Canada to raise awareness of polio. He was kind enough to pose with us.

So much snow

As a follow up to my blog of last week, we've gotten a ton of snow. Well, not really at ton, not that much actually, but for October/early November? It's quite a bit. For all intents and purposes, winter has arrived.

For the record, I'm cool with that. It is beautiful, it is sunny (when it's not snowing) and the temperature is very comfortable.

For the record, Mike thinks "snow is like rain, kinda frozen." Genius.

Some day I will regret it

Some day, inevitably, I will regret everything that I am about to say. Some day. But for today.....

It's snowing, and I am soooo excited!! It's the craziest thing here! When it started getting dark, we were ready. When it started threatening to snow, we were ready. Weird, right? I know! But honestly, everything is to such extremes here, by the time weather changes, people are ready.

As if by decree, it started snowing today. It had to, tomorrow is halloween and it snows for halloween. Apparently that's the rule. Crazy thing is, I'm ok with that. The last 3 weeks have been very grey and oft described as Ontario-like. I hate that - grey, damp, blah and am thrilled with the current flurries.

Like I said, I will regret this, but there is nothing prettier than a mountain covered with snow, and walks are so much better with the light reflecting off of the white. I'll probably hate it if we get that 20cm tonight, but for right now. I'm very happy indeed!

Black

I survived my first early morning this week. Not my first ever, but my first since it has been getting dark.

For weeks, I have started my day working from home, waiting just long enough to walk Maui once it has gotten bright out. It's been a nice way to ease into the change, and a good way to manage the hours I have been putting in.

But this week, I had to conduct a tour at 9am, which meant a walk in the dark. Apparently, I was woefully unprepared. For starters, I'm not entirely sure amidst our boxes where I might find a flashlight. I have some idea, but I had no time. I was also wearing a black coat, grey dress, black tights and black boots - not particularly safe.

We started out along the street, which was relatively ok. But the second we walked into the forest, wow, it was like hitting a brick wall. Quite literally, I could not see my own hand in front of my face (probably the black gloves) and most of the time I couldn't even see Maui's white blaze. Dogs from every direction, let into their backyards, began barking like crazy at us. They knew we were there, but I doubt they could see us. We sure could not see them.

I am not sure I have ever actually been in darkness that complete. From the street, where there is a little bit of light, it was spectacular. Millions of stars. From the woods, sheer, utter and complete black. I had to take the path by memory and talk the entire time so Maui knew where I was. She, largely, stayed on my heels and actually whimpered in fear for a large part of our walk.

I felt terrible, and will definitely not do that again.

Articles

I'm not very inspired yet today, so here's a link to two recent articles. Another comes out in a week or two.

For background, we received $75,000 through a community development grant to develop 14 interpretive panels and to build 6 viewing platforms at the Preserve. The point was to stimulate the economy by buying local and hiring local people, as well as increase a sense of community by incorporating volunteers. It makes for a very complicated project!

With 10 days left, we've thought of almost nothing but this project for the past 6-8 weeks and probably won't until the very detailed post-project report is done mid-November.

Wild Life: All About Oreamnos americanus http://bit.ly/4pYT4K
Wild Life: Work that Satisfies http://bit.ly/I0bIM

So sleepy

I have to admit it, I have been struggling with this season change. Not really struggling, just feeling sleepy and lazy. Funny thing is, I expect I always have trouble waking up as it gets darker in the morning, and getting energized as it gets cooler and/or gloomier, but I don't think I have ever really given it much thought. These days, however, I get asked so often about the dark/how I'm handling the dark/how tired I might be/etc that I am extremely conscious of it all. Which makes me think, perhaps wrongly, that this year is different.

In a comforting way, I am learning that everyone else I know is struggling too. It's strange, I think I had some crazy perception that everyone who lived in Whitehorse was unaffected by the seasons and the darkness, but they do. In some way, it's comforting. In a recent edition of What's Up Yukon, my editor wrote this editorial. It struck a cord with me. Enjoy.

I'm Just Saying: It's Cheechako's First Winter
October 15, 2009
BY DARRELL HOOKEY

This is a special column just for you Cheechakos. If you are a Sourdough, you already know this stuff. Flip the page and you will find a delightful column by Rob Millar on how to barbecue tofu.

OK, here is your first “winter lesson”: when someone said to you, “Have you seen Grey Mountain?”, you should not have been offended. Yes, of course you've seen Grey Mountain. I mean, c'mon, it's a mountain. Kinda hard to miss a mountain when it's right there in the middle of town.

But what they were really saying was, first, “I thought you were a Sourdough” (a real compliment) and, more to the point, “Winter is getting closer and closer.”

You see, those of us who live in Whitehorse know that Old Man Winter lives on top of Grey Mountain and he slowly reaches his foulness toward the city a little bit every day.

Every day, we get to see it get closer and we know it will be even closer tomorrow. And, when it is, indeed, closer the next morning, we say to each other, “Have you seen Grey Mountain?” This is usually followed by words of comfort that are neither meant nor believed.

Unspoken is the fact that Teslin is probably already a goner.

You will never hear someone respond with, “Whoo hoo! I'm going to get my ice fishing gear ready!” or “I can hardly wait until I can catch snowflakes on my tongue!”

Do you want to know why? Because November and December are not the ideal ice fishing season; and having snowflakes slammed into the back of your throat on 55 km/h winds loses that sense of fun real quick.

Sure, snowflakes fall gently to the earth, but then the winds catch it and whip them at you and over your parka's collar, through the layers of fleece and kicks in that trapdoor of your long johns and up your ... oh! ... my goodness.

The snow (the horror, the horror) keeps falling. I remember when it used to snow only twice a week. Now it is every day, and if you don't shovel it off the sidewalk right away, it turns into the hardest ice imaginable.

“How can ice be hard or not hard?” you ask. You're a Cheechako, you wouldn't understand. Just realize that early winter around here is like a dinner served cold, like a shoe that pinches; like a boss that yells, like Elisabeth Hasselbeck when she talks.
And it is dark; it is oh so dark. December is the darkest month.

So, you are now wondering: Why do people live here when you have snow on the ground six to seven months of the year?
It's because we can tolerate November and December since we are exhausted from the hectic summer and we welcome an excuse to cocoon indoors. And we can tolerate January because we are exhausted from Christmas.

But February, March and April are your reward for putting up with November, December and January.

The snow is soft and white and looks like a Christmas card everywhere you look. The sun now lasts a decent amount of time each day and warms you up when you trust it enough to open your jacket to it.

All of a sudden, the Yukon will be peopled not by parka-clad gnomes who shuffle from doorway to doorway, but instead by sporty hipsters in their brightly coloured jackets and wrap-around sunglasses.

We become the beautiful butterflies that emerge from the serviceable cocoons of Thinsulate and nylon shells.

Once you have survived early winter and rejoiced with late winter, lived the yin and yang of this place and acknowledged that the long nights are “cozy” and not “depressing”, then you may call yourself ... a Sourdough.

A couple of Yukon Firsts. Part One.

Number One: Last week, we were separating caribou from each other. It is the rut, and males can only share an enclosure if one acknowledges the other is king, as it were. This appeared to be an impossible task for two of our males who continued battling over and over and over again. For the record, two full size males fighting can crash through gates, caribou can also 'climb' fences to get away. Apparently, so can females when "no means no" continues to be ignored. So...we did some rearranging and moved animals to different areas. One particularly excitable male went into solitary confinement (just kidding, he's in a huge enclosure, just on his own for a bit), one male moved from co-ed to an all-male enclosure and then we encouraged the females to go home again.

By and large, a lot of running around/patient walking/encouragement, but a very smooth process. Except for one small, memorable experience. The male we were moving to solitary had to walk past the all-male enclosure to get to his new home. Generally, we let animals find their own way, and he found his way back to the bull he had been fighting. The two went antler to antler through the fence in full force. It had been my job to encourage him to keep walking up the roadway, so I was about 2 feet away when this happened.

Wow! What an amazing show of force. Their strength and determination is unbelievable. Certainly not something I can do justice to in words.

I was very impressed I stood my ground, but frankly they could not have cared less that I was there and so long as I kept my distance we were a-ok. After a few moments of battling, we were able to take advantage of their momentary break and keep moving him forward. Moments later, he was where he needed to be and seemingly pretty happy to be able to eat something in peace.

The Moon and Stars

Last night we had a Board meeting. It lasted until 9:40 pm. The Preserve, at night, is extremely dark with very few lights. When I went outside last night, I could not see my hand in front of my face (scary) - but I saw millions and millions and millions of the most amazing stars. Breathtaking!

This morning, I woke up and begrudgingly went upstairs to do emails. Maui eventually got up too and when I let her outside (by this time around 7:30 am) I had the most amazing view of the quarter moon. It was perfectly arched. It was spectacular. It was the moon at 7:30 am!

Road Closures

I have mentioned it before, but it is very easy to forget that we live in a remote region. In so many ways, Whitehorse is just like any other urban centre and then, something happens to remind us that's not quite the case. Recently, it was the Road Report.

Every radio station reports on the territory-wide road conditions daily. It is also published online, updated regularly, by the territory. I initially found it unbelievable, but the reality is, there are very few highways/major roadways in the territory, and often there is only one route in and out of a community.

I usually block the road report out. Largely, it is updates on persons working, loose gravel, frost heaves and local smoke. Average stuff. Recently, however, a prototypical Yukon report caught my attention. In addition to the frost heaves, fog and slippery conditions, this week''s report included the following:

Highway 6, the North Canol, is now closed for the season.
The Pelly Barge has ceased operation for the season.
Canada Customs at Little Gold is now closed for the season. Highway 9, the Top of the World highway is now closed from km 86 to km 105.
The George Black Ferry is in operation from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. The George Black Ferry will be out of service as soon as the life boats can not be launched safely due to ice conditions.

Ahh...we really are in the north. Daily updates available here.

Our pick your own

Using "we" in the loosest of terms, we became members at a pick-your-own farm this summer. As anyone who knows me knows, we are huge supporters of local farmers and producers and try very hard to eat local and in season. We have not nearly reached the "almost exclusively" status that we had in Ottawa, but slowly, slowly we are getting there.

I may have already blogged about some of the challenges I experienced at the farm this summer - not the least of which is re-learning when things are ready, rushing to pick and store things when everything is ready at the same time and, as it turns out, inadequate/inappropriate storage at our apartment, meaning I have lost a lot of food I had successfully stored in Ottawa. Sigh. It has also been a bit challenging gardening around work, which was all-consuming this summer, but more than once I found myself lost in the garden for hours. The other thing which I am sure I have mentioned, is how unbelievably large the veggies get here. With near constant sunshine, veggies grow big and they grow fast - meaning the big ones are still edible, but sometimes too big to even try.

Why go to all this work? Why not just eat stuff from the grocery store? Well, my health for one, the local economy for another and, well, I don't know too many Monday night dinners that require 15 minutes prep and look like this. Yum!