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Published: March 21st 2013
Watching the Aurora
A dazzling display of lights in Late February... The entire sky was dancing!
But really I was looking for Pukak.Hello to all blog followers!
The weather right now is 'most unpleasant', which I think is a very slight improvement on this morning's weather - which was 'particularly unpleasant.' Yesterday's weather was 'somewhat unpleasant' and it's likely that tomorrow will be 'less than pleasant' too. However, I'm hopeful that by April it will become more pleasant, and by looking out the window, it surely must!
What an awesome winter storm!
The wind is howling. Outside, all you can hear is the sound of trees getting hammered and the metal panels of the building getting slammed by the nor'wester. However, the northern lights are spiraling above with vivid greens and bands of white filling the sky with mystery and wonder. It truly is a magical time of the year, with the aurora in full bloom and daylight returning - we love it! Winter is sputtering out into the next season - late winter. Or as the equinox implies - spring.
Happy spring time to all you northern hemispherians... Happy autumn to everyone south of the equator, we will kindly continue to donate our excess, unwanted darkness to you until June.
Also, I wanted to talk briefly about
the Pukak. It's rather elusive, yet it smothers the planet's northern latitudes for months on end. Entombing the Earth from Vladivostok to Tuktoyaktuk, protecting the ground from the everpresent danger of the predatory snow crystals that pile up in feeble attempts to suffocate it...The mighty Pukak is indeed a hidden blanket of power. Only those brave souls who venture into the unforgiving frozen vastness of the north, armed with shovels, will bear witness to the mighty Pukak!
Pukak: An Inuktitut word meaning the small, thin layer of snow crystals covering the ground...
I also think it is fun just to say "Pukak."
ON STARS...
I had a brilliant lesson on the night sky with "Starman" Roger! There's so much up there to look at. I could clearly see Jupiter, and through binoculars, I could see two of its moons. The twin stars of Gemini - Pollux and Castor, the constellations of Leo and Aires, the red giant star of Betelgeuse with its companions, Salph, Bellatrix and Rigel in the very familiar constellation of Orion. With Polaris overhead, the aurora dancing in the heavens and frost welding our eyelids shut we retreated to the warmth inside, and
On the shore of a Frozen Sea
Standing on an unnamed spit of land at an unnamed point on an uninhabited stretch of unused coast that overlooks a seemingly endless expanse of polar bear infested ice. although I wasn't feeling the cold, my binoculars were, they had fogged up - and it's hard to be optimistic when you have a misty optic. We chatted more inside about the cosmic ceiling that surrounds us. It feels great to be more familiar with the stars and it was really special to re-learn all the stuff I'd forgotten. I thanked Starman and bid him farewell... "Keep looking up!" was his wonderful and quirky response. There's magic to that...!
To follow up, I have continued to gaze upward at that huge area above. The night sky is without a doubt the largest thing I've ever seen, and it's full of interesting objects. I'm sure I saw the Millenium Falcon cruising through Hyperspace as well... Or maybe that was my imagination because we have been living on Planet Hoth for the last few months eating Taun-tauns... "And I thought they smelled bad on the outside!"
ON RAINBOWS...
It was minus 38 degrees with a wind that chewed your face off on top of that, making it feel like minus fifty-something! I decided to go for a run... Yes, that's right - a run! It was amazing! It was
Departing the Owl River Site
We snow-cored and dug snow pits at this beautiful site in Wapusk National Park. exhilarating and overpowering, I laughed as I breathed as I enjoyed the spectacularly incredible weather and the utter ridiculousness of the exercise! Anyone who saw me must have thought I was some suicidal madman with no reason to live any longer or a masocistic maniac with nothing more painful to do... Whereas in fact, I was having a whole lot of fun whilst embracing nature's fury... It was without a doubt the single most awesome run - ever! The icy wind blasted my inch wide eye-strip of exposed skin, frost built up on my shoulders from perspiration, my joints protested as I slowly threw myself forward, and then something else - something remarkable happened. I started to see rainbows... Spectrums in the sky and all around! There was so much ice that had formed around my eyebrows that I'd almost grown my own pair of glasses! And I could see rainbows through them - but only for a second until I instinctively wiped my eyes... It really was such an unusual sensation, and I'm assuming that it can only be experienced by going for a run when it's minus silly, with a windchill of minus stupid!
ON WINTER RESEARCH...
The Vast and Lonely Wapusk.
Where forest meets tundra... And where Pukak lurks beneath. Out on the land with various teams of scientists, volunteers, tourists and school kids, we've been sampling snow. At a variety of sites on the tundra, in the boreal forest and in the transitional zone between the two, we've measured snow depth and recorded temperatures at different depths, we've measured snow hardness and density, counted snow layers, identified different types of snow crystals in different layers, measured the thinkness of each layer, and poked people in the eye with icicles... O.K., so we didn't really poke anybody anywhere with anything... I just like to say poke, because it sounds like pukak... It was very interesting and important work. A lot of the data is used to determine snowpack patterns from year to year and to help forecast natural events such as forest fires and spring flooding. A few other side projects involved us taking spruce needle samples to measure moisture loss at different heights, and nailing frozen fish to trees as bait for a wolverine study... Seriously, I got to nail a frozen herring to a tree! How cool is that! Like, really. Who, in their day to day work, can honestly say that they have nailed a frozen
Tree Island
There are countless tree islands at the edge of the tree line. fish to a tree!
ON THE COLD...
"Do you ever get used to the cold?" A lot of people have asked me that this winter. It's a good question that I have no quick and simple answer to... I think we can all get used to the cold in the same way as we get used to the stars... The cold is just there - and we are used to it being there. The stars are just there and we're used to that too. I think we learn to dress for it and we learn to deal with it. I think we develop a better threshhold for the pain and discomfort it thrusts upon us, and we can withstand the pain and discomfort for a longer period of time than people of warmer climes. But if I were to remove my parka and walk out onto the sea ice in the midst of an arctic storm - I would perish... In minutes... I think we do get used to the cold - but only up to a certain point...
I will not be running outside today without wearing adequate clothing, and although I may have lost my
mind - I'm confident that I'll find it... Somewhere in the Pukak.
Stay tuned...
Dave (and Theresa)...
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Amazing place you've chosen to live
The weather is a bit unpleasant for us long term but you've had experiences others can only dream off. Simply amazing. Riding with Starman Roger must have been stunning. Have you had many polar bears this season? A few years back I worked in Antarctica for 5 months and it was cold but much easier to tolerate than expected. With that said I only did it for one season. I much prefer beaches and palm trees. Each year you travel to warm climates to thaw out....where will you go this year?