Less than 2 weeks ago - here looked snowy and the hares looked like this

Changing colours

This is a fun time of year to watch the Arctic Hare as it sheds its thick winter coat of white for a grey brown summer coat --- its a patchy affair with lots of different variations - some brown backed white faced hares and some (see above) brown faced, white-rumped ones... and they are still huge and fast.

Having reread my last post. I realize that its rambly to the point where I can barely follow it - so I'm going to try sleeping.

Night

In the Geographic Center of Canada

You can see today's steady rain moving in behind the Inukshuk marking the geographic center of Canada. I had one of those spiritual moments that you can only have standing at the top of a hill looking out over a vast and beautiful natural landscape with the wind in your hair. That kind of feeling of wonder at the beauty and power of the natural world. I have the heart of an artist, even if I lack the coordination and spatial sense to put what I see onto paper. It can be terribly frustrating, but I'm grateful for the gifts I have and the rare moments when I manage to capture some semblence of the things I want to put to paper and that which I can't put to paper... I can still paint on the pages of my heart. Fortunately, my camera is a forgiving tool and allows me to share what I see much better than my paintbrush and pastels can.... So here it is... an almost perfect moment in my life.... the only thing that was missing was Gabe who I would have loved to share that view with... well... umm.. here you go... wish you were there :P

Unfurling Ferns

I took a lot of pictures of ferns yesterday. You should also note that the crowberries above were in a sheltered spot and I flowering (I believe)... they have such tiny red flowers.

MIgration Patterns

Northward bound - I'm not a good enough birder to tell you what species they are... but I've seen enough Canadian Geese to suggest that I think those must me a V of snow geese. I must have seen 5 or 6 head north yesterday evening. Meanwhile.. we have some territory shifts going on here in town and I'm nearly set to dismantle my Ikea nightmare of a loftbed... trying to decide whether to call for reinforcements or not. Perhaps I'll clean some other stuff first before I move my territory to the south east and then continue further southeast to write the thesis, rescue my garden (I'm sure it needs a good weeding, feeding and staking by now), walk the dog and hang out with my family and friends in the suburb of my childhood....

Simple Beauties

I have had the honour of photographing one of the most beautiful weddings I've ever seen. The bride could have held her own in any royal ballroom, although as amazing as her dress was, I suspect it was her glowing smile, lighting up her face every time she looked at her husband and kids that really stole the show. I've totally lost track of time while filtering through the the shots.

I also finally got a chance to go out on the land for the first time since the science camp in the fall. The tundra amazes me - every rock crevice was a different microhabitat and you could easily pick out the sheltered sites from the exposed sites. The fern were just being to unfurl and they caught my eye... They were not even waiting for the ice to melt...

and I had much more to write earlier this evening.. but I fear my yawns are catching up with me and I'm not really read to move tomorrow.. so I'm going to grab a bit of sleep so I can get my kitchen squared away before dismantling my ikea nightmare of a loft bed.... I fear I feel just a bit like the mother mouse in the rats of Nimh as the shrew is calling - "the plow is coming, its moving day" Besides I'm hoping not to catch swine flu which is spreading like wildfire in Nunavut....

jumping jahosaphat

Speeding arctic hare makes for wherever there are fewer dogs, people and children

crystal pallisades

The melting ice formed some kind of strange crystalline structure... that made for pretty pictures...

emerging tundra

The tundra is slowly emerging from its winter duvet of snow.... and colour and life are bursting forth. I must have 2 or 3 dozen pictures of siksik and ptarmigan alone.. not to mention planes and skies and other odds and ends.... The weather was amazing... warm enough for a light shirt rolled up to my elbows... and sunny enough to have mildly burned my cheeks and the tops of my arms... sigh.. I guess I should be glad it doesn't hurt...

Cloud Mountains

Spring is finally here with the temperatures soaring to 1.3 C. Snow is melting and running down the ditches and roads in rivelets... possibly they will be torrents by the end of the week... we are hoping for some more zero plus weather.. maybe even.... Rain.

Apocalypse

With a title like that who knows what kind of traffic I'll get... in actual fact.. I think it was my camera blinking... because I pointed it at the sun... with my eyes closed of course.

Return of the SIksik

The siksiks have been popping up around town in the last week... so along with the snow and the temperatures approaching zero - they are sure signs of spring coming.

Last Northern Lights

I won't be seeing the northern lights up here for a while, probably not until next fall. However, maybe by then the solar cycle will hopefully have geared up a bit, although, currently we do actually have sunspots and the solar flux is at a high this year of 74.

In the meantime, we still haven't broken 0 C this year..... weatherman says maybe this Sunday... but so far all previous promises have been broken.

Off to the Races

I was lucky to catch some of the outdoor games that were part of Hamlet days.... It was amazing to watch and one of the nicest days weather wise so far.... the next week is still supposed to be colder than normal, but maybe the week we'll brak zero.

Caribou Skin Drag

Someone asked for an explanation of the Caribou Skin Drag - well here it is....

It is a skidoo race, but you have to be careful. You have an empty 5 galleon can on a caribou skin and if it falls off you have to stop and go get it and put it back on. The first person to the mark and back wins.

snow bunting

Echoing Toughts

I know.. same picture as before, but I like the cropped version much better.

Its been an introspective kind of day. I don't know whether to blame the late night viewing of The Shawshank Redemption, The cheesy Hillary Duff flick or several hours of listening to the Vitamin String Quartet. Perhaps it is the pretty close to all the time lightness that has through my internal clock for a complete loop.

Some of the thoughts, if not most, have been standard self examination of goals, choices, beliefs, philosophies and some the simple joy of listening to a violin's rendition of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" I feel like I've been told that one day I'll grow up and be 100% sure of who I am and what I want... yet watching those same questions play across the lives of my high school students I feel sometimes I aught to warn them that in reality, most people never answer those questions definitively. Perhaps for spans of time, you will feel certain of the answer - but every day of your life leaves its tracks on your soul changing you again and again... so how can the question "Who am I?" not come back to haunt you eventually. Thus far, my road has been a convoluted and winding one - and perhaps one question I might ask is of the egg and chicken variety. Is my failure to answer the question of who I am due to the winding road or is it the cause of it?

I think, when I was writing this post in my head while staring out the window at the horizon, that I had a lot more to add - that there were a few topics I wanted to explore in writing, but then I read a few articles in the Toronto Star and found some new things to blog about....

The government of Canada wasn't doing what they wanted fast enough, so 2000 of the Tamil people of Toronto walked onto the Gardiner (on Mother's day) and stopped traffic. Now, I gather from what I've read, that there are 2 sides to the story about what is going on in Sri Lanka and the truth is, as always, war is not pretty and I think this is a fairly nasty one with both sides having plenty of blood on their hands. I have no intention in taking sides with either group nor do I have any problem with a group lobbying the government through proper channels for attention to an international crisis. I think it is terrible that innocent people are dying and that even if they are surviving that their lives, communities and economies have been destroyed and I do sypathize with their family members here who are feeling powerless to help their familys back home. I just don't like their choice of tactics.

My concern is that this type of "negotiating" should not be tolerated in Canada. This is a lot like a bank robber or kidnapper making demands with a gun head to the victims head. Most concessions achieved from a party who negotiated under duress are carried out without enthusiasm. I don't know that this will buy them the willing ear of the federal government nor even the sympathy of the common Canadian or journalist. Very few people feel inclined to cooperate when demands are made of them in this fashion, in fact, given that the we have the police and army resources to easily remove the protesters from area - the only reason they are still there is because the governments are stalling until they come up with a politically palatable way to deal with the situation - and so the protesters have accomplished little other than to sour public opinion against them and annoy the very people they want help from. For all I know, the government is leaving them where they are on purpose to ensure public opinion is soured against them. After this demonstration, even if the government had been interested in doing something about the situation in Sri Lanka, they now will have to weigh their actions against public opinion and they probably do not dare to look as if they are giving into these kinds of demands. The protesters would have been far better off to get public opinion behind them in a positive way.

Sigh. Why can't people just get along?

And it is now nearly dark and I've rambled on longer than I planned. The sun is still without sunspots and it feels weird that it is May and yet still winter, but rarely night. I do have a nice little stockpile of pictures... so hopefully I'll kick the trend of intermittant blogging in Nunavut, at least a bit.

Reflections on my Life

I went outside and spent a bit of time watching our local Hamlet Day competitions - in particular barrel racing and caribou skin drag - both being Skidoo or "machine" events. It was actually fairly warm and the wind fairly calm. So, now I can't use lack of pictures.

The northern lights were out for the last time that I'll likely see them at all up here. Unfortunately, even at midnight, the sky was too bright to see them well. In about 2 weeks there will be no such thing as civil twilight... which is to say that it'll be mostly light all of the time.