Waiting for Godot

Our faith has been tested.

And then Spring finally, feebly crept in

with her enormous flocks of Sparrows.

 

The river broke up

the few crocuses whose buds were not frozen by the late frosts finally blossomed

and at long last the birch sap ran.

We were more ready for it than we have ever been.

But the White Witch returns

and returns and returns again.

She buries the flowers.

And she shuts it all down.

 

The sapsicles hang heavy from the tapped trees.

We pass the time, waiting for Godot.

And the sparrows, in a cold and hungry stooper, fly low and erratic.

Their songs are desperate cries:

“I am still here; I am a survivor against all odds."

 

They mix with the songs of my daughter Selwyn,

who is pleading with Spring to come for her birthday next week.

 

 

Waiting For Spring

Spring is coming on slow this year, if she is coming at all.

The trail is still solid, skiing is still good, and the snow is deeper than it has been all season.

Haven't even smelled that earthy scent on the wind yet.

The only signs are the swirling flocks of snow-buntings along the highway

and the birches from a distance have taken on the deep pink as they do with the thaw.

 It was warm enough to search for chocolate eggs in the snow and feast around the campfire.

 

 

We had our Easter fire, the final bonfire of the season.

 

 

 

Since then it has dropped once more. The syruping crew has arrived, we are ready and waiting and biding our time, trying not to burn all the firewood while we wait.

Handsome Furs

This little fellow found the caribou hides we had stretched out in front.

He has been gnawing bits off

hiss-growling and tik-tiking at us

 before scampering off when we get too near.

I hadn't before realized how varied Pine Marten vocalizations can be.

 

His coat is extra glossy, perhaps because of the bones he's found in our yard.

Such a handsome fur would've brought in a few hundred dollars this year I imagine,

 but it couldn't be worth more to anyone other than him.

 

Here is someone else who can't help herself and is inspired to dress beautifully every day.

 

And here's her footwear of which I too am proud.

The toll of a cold snap

Its been a cold winter.

It hit -50 degrees Celsius first in November and that burst our min-max thermometer.

The cold kept coming.

While we were away a young wolf curled up and died in our wash tent.

We had a bale of straw in there.

 Her stomach was stuck to her ribs. I'd guess she starved, the toll of a cold snap.

She's probably not the only one. I am glad at least she had a comfortable nest.

Breakdown

Things only work well often enough for us to expect them to.

They give us a few easily felled and bucked trees,

a few smooth rides over the snowdrifts,

and then, try as we might to go easy on them,

the machines always break down.

 

More often than not something's broken.

I see that every plan involving a machine ought to have a stand in.

 

 

Here's our girls waiting patiently while the day comes undone:

Part way down the trail we find the skidoo will need a new carborator.

Maybe we can get one on e-bay.

We limp it back to the road.

 

Here's the stand in plan to get home:

 

We leave everything on the skimmer but the fresh produce

and the library book Hop on Pop (Selwyn's nightly reading).

 

This way of travel involves

more exercise and fresh air than we had in mind,

a picnic lunch in the sunshine in the lee of a strong wind whipping snow up into dunes.

 

which obliterate the trail but make for excellent sliding.

 

Five hours later we are heating up our little house in the setting sun.

 

 

Post Valentines

I haven't taken many pictures since the downfall of film.

But as my memory seemed a lonely and unreliable place

to keep all these images of my growing children,

I finally bought myself a camera

to document the days, the years, these lives as they fly by.

 

This blog will share some of those images.

In the backdrop or the foreground, the wilderness we explore and inhabit ought to reveal it's splendor.

And I will recount the trials and joys of our continued attempts to forge a comfortable niche here

living on the edge

of the bluffs overlooking the McQuesten River.

 

The days are short and the nights long and sometimes bright. This photo was taken by moonlight just before winter solstice by our friend Louis Schilder.  He and my mother skied in for a visit at -30 celcius. Our mini family home, 330 sq feet of comfort in the central Yukon's boreal forest, may well have been the only warm place but for the interiors of the forest creatures for miles in all directions. That is a precious feeling.

 

 

My family is with the times though, and when the snow is too deep and the wind drifts it too high for our truck, we come in and out the 14 km trail by skidoo, (all four of us on one for the time being).