Well...I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights in all their glory and when I began to research it Yellowknife is one of the very best places to view them from - so my dream began. And then since I had my Air Canada ticket this was an opportunity I couldn't refuse - a regular air ticket to Yellowknife costs an arm and a leg.
So I booked the flight to Yellowknife to coincide with my travelling to be with Becky in PG. When I stepped off the plane the sun was shining and I took my first breath of northern air and my nostrils stuck together. It was 30 below. And I remembered the feeling from my childhood of living in a northern climate.
I had booked a B&B right on the shores of The Great Slave Lake. I learned later that the locals just call it "The Big Lake". I asked them which one was the "Little Lake" and they just said "All of them - take your pick".
Yellowknife is very flat but dotted with lakes all over.
So this is the Bayside B&B that I stayed at.
The Japanese flock in droves to Yellowknife to view the Northern Lights. All the advertising for the tours of the lights and even in my B&B were in Japanese as well as English. There were 4 Japanese staying while I was there. The afternoon that I got there I asked this lady if she wanted to go for a walk with me. Her name is Akeiko. This was her third time to Yellowknife to see the northern lights. The gentleman that was also staying at the B&B had come for the second time.
Akeiko and I took a short walk up to the only hill in Yellowknife called "Pilot's Monument". It was just behind the B&B. It is a monument to the pilots that have serviced the northern area. Air travel has been extremely important to the Territories.
Akeiko's english was pretty good and we managed to laugh and share stories. It is an enriching time to meet and share life with someone else from another country.
But do you see how flat it is around there?
I was surprised by the flatness. And for me being a mountain girl - it kind of gave me a lonely feeling.
This picture shows the monument a bit better. It was a beautiful sunny day the first day.
This is the view from the balcony of the B&B. Looking out over the lake.
I didn't take any night pictures of the northern lights because it is hard to take pictures in the north. First of all - your batteries stop working - it's too cold for them. I had to keep my camera next to my body inside all my clothing in between pictures and then quickly put it back near my warmth. And second - you need a good night type of camera to take pictures of the lights so I just went to experience them and I bought a postcard instead.
This is the spot where I would walk out on the lake in front of the B&B and watch the lights from. From here I had a view of the whole sky. It was amazing.
The first night the couple in the picture below arrived from Boston. This is Mark & Judy. So...on Saturday evening Judy & I bundled ourselves up and tromped through the snow onto the lake and watched the sky and thoroughly enjoyed the northern lights. And then we laid down on the snowbank and looked up at the sky.That first night the lights were a bright white and slightly neon green in colour. They were like smoke rising and curling across the sky, sometimes appearing like fingers reaching down to the shoreline. Or they'd curl up like cotton batten. They were fascinating and surreal.
When we got cold we went inside and watched the skies from inside the B&B. It was a treat to share this experience with someone. Mark & Judy were heading the next morning on a plane to Bathurst Lodge to experience the lights some more artic activities like dog-sledding and snowshoeing.
This is us having breakfast the next morning in the tea shop that is part of the B&B.
Sunday morning I went to the United Church with the B&B owners. I know this is a fuzzy picture but I wanted to show you anyways. It is one of their wall hanging quilts that depicts a northern perspective of God. The quilt says "The windows of heaven were opened." And you can see the symbolic northern lights shining down on the northern Inukshuk.Friendly and Warm - that's how to describe the people that greeted me. Many people came and talked to me afterwards - a grampa, an educational administrator, a choir member...
..and to show you the diversity of Yellowknife here is a little Korean girl who has on her special Chinese New Year outfit. I guess there is a significant Korean community of people. Her mother told me that on this special day they go visit some elders and the elders give them a blessing or speak wisdom to the children.
Now...back at the B&B. I just wanted to show you that even though the lake was right out in front of the B&B it was a busy place for transportation. Many snowmobiles drove by, trucks drove by on the ice. (The ice road starts at Yellowknife and trucks and transport trucks travel over the lakes to take supplies and fuel to the many camps and town. They only have the road open so long before the ice starts to soften up)
Sunday afternoon after my nap I went with the B&B owners to the local arts centre to listen to some old timers tell local Yellowknife history stories. It was great to be amongst the locals and get the real flavour of Yellowknife.
This guy here in the beard was the town dump person. He had some stories to tell of people's garbage and sometimes the treasures found there.
The guy holding the paper is a pilot and told of the history that the airplanes played in the north and some of the funny stories. Planes are vital to the north as most communities can only be reached by air or by snowmobile.
This last guy was just plain funny. He was originally from Wales as a young man and came to Yellowknife and has stayed ever since. He told some funny stories in a very animated manner.
This is where I would sit and watch the lights from in the B&B. On Sunday night I was all by myself as the Japanese guests were all out with the tour guides and Mark and Judy had flown out that morning to a more remote location.Now...you have to realise that the lights don't start to really appear until late in the evening. They started to form and gather somewhere around 11:30 or 12:00 at night. So, that is why I had already had a few naps by that time because I wanted to be able to stay up til around 2:00 AM. So around midnight I bundled up in my clothes and trundled off to the lake infront of the local AIR TINDI bulding that I showed you earlier.
Sunday night was great. I was out on the lake all by myself. Just me and God. I stood in awe. I sang, I danced and thoroughly relished the moments. And then after about 45 minutes I got a bit cold so I was going to go in and I was kinda saying good night to the great creator and then just as I was about to go the sky just exploded with light and growing, flowing movement. It was amazing, fantastic, thrilling....I was overwhelmed with the beauty and began to laugh and laugh at this wonder. And then I began to cry with such emotion at this display and the privilege to experience it. Tears were rolling down my cheeks and I realized that I had better stop crying or else they'd freeze on my cheeks. I have to say that standing there amongst this awesome display of natural glory was a rich spiritual experience for me of communion with my creator. The trip was worth it for this night alone.
This is the poem Missie, my daughter wrote in response to my description above:Maureen Visits the North
Lying like a child
spread-eagled on the snow
on a much frozen lake
far from her home and all alone
She is making an angel
absently moving her arms and legs
(or maybe butterfly wings
either way it's perfect
and innocent and fragile)
Ignoring the growing cold on her back
the rough wind across her face,
what are these things compared
to the galaxy above her?
bright and open in blackness
vastness-
She has never seen so many stars.
But this is but the setting of the stage
she is an actor, a director
and she has come to see the dancers-
Oh there! All at once
they appear
fading into substance
in the air above her
Giant shapes dance through every colour she has ever felt
Air becomes colour becomes motion becomes emotion
and she is breathless
held insignificant in the play of the light above her.
She is laughing and crying and choking
all at once.
The God-shapes dance the unfathomable
as they have for unfathomable time and she, bright angel
brief butterfly
is ready to die
having seen and felt
the eternal.
Thanks Missie - you have expressed my experience so exactly and poetically.
Monday I took some time to head into Yellowknife (My B&B was in what is called "Old Town"). I wanted to see their legislative building.This is Yellowknife.
This is a beautiful carving in the legislative assembly building. There was a tour at 10:30 and since I was the only person it was a private tour - very fascinating. My guide, Trish, was passionate about her form of government.
For those of you like me who didn't know how the Territories was governed this was an education time for me. The Northwest Territoires do not have political parties. Each person is elected to represent their area and then these MLAs govern by consensus.This is a view of their legislature room. This room was built to reflect their environment. The windows at the top represent the ice on their lakes. The silver coloured backing is made from the metal from the area. The speakers chair has a carving at the top and the main clerk's chair is covered in seal skin...
...and a polar bear lays in the middle of the floor. But most interesting was learning how they rule by consensus even though the area is very diverse. They have 33 communities with 11 recognized languages and only 50,000 people. Many of the government signs read in all of the languages - and we thought that having french and english on our signs made them long....
Then I stopped in for a walk through the local museum where I sat and watched a movie on the making of this moosehide boat.
When I left to go back downtown to Yellowknife to catch the bus back to Old Town I walked through this path where flags from all 33 communities were flying.
And I saw this sign that you only see in Yellowknife...
Besides snowmobiles riding in front of the B&B there were also planes that were flying into the Air Tindi building right beside the B&B.
After I had rested all afternoon on Monday I went for a short little walk down the lake to the Ice Castle that was getting built right on the lake. The builders were getting it ready for their local festival in March. I guess this caslte gets so big that it gets rented out and people stay the night in it - like a hotel room. And there's a chapel that people get married in if they want. So...since I love pretend things and totally remember making snow houses as a kid I most certainly wanted to go to this castle and it too didn't disappoint me.It was a cloudy day so it is a bit hard to distinguish the snow from the white sky but this is a picture of the igloo.
Here I am standing at the front of the castle. I wanted to show you how big this castle is. And remember how cold it is outside and that I have to pull my camera out of my snowpants - screw it on the tripod and then click the timer and run into the picture - all before the batteries get cold.Oh, and there's one more thing to notice - the windows - they are clear ice from the lake that you can look through - cool, eh?
These creations are at the entrance to the castle.
This is me standing in the doorway wishing I was 7 years old again and could play in this castle.
This is the houseboat that the builder lives in. He's called the SnowKing. A lot of the houses in area of Old Town are painted very colorfully.
I saw this statue of the polar bear as I came into Yellowknife airport but I didn't have my camera with me so when I left I made sure that I had my camera. It is a fantastic display. (The airport in Smithers had a grizzly bear and I didn't have my camera then either so I wanted to make sure that I took a picture of this one) Can you see the seal that the polar bear is trying to catch?
And this is a picture of me that someone else took. Ya, ya, I know I should've just carried my tripod with me and done it myself.
On my way up to Prince George I met a wonderful lady. This was the part of the trip from Yellowknife to Calgary. I wasn't even scheduled to sit by her but a young man asked if I could switch with him so he could sit by his girlfriend. I was more than happy to oblige and was so thrilled that I did. I got to meet Elizabeth.Elizabeth lives in Taloyak in Nunavut. And believe it or not but she knows someone in Penticton that I know. The world is small. But besides both knowing the same person I got to talk with her and ask her about her life.
Elizabeth lives in a small community of 600 or so people. Some people in her community have never flown out of there. It is very expensive to fly out of her community. She is in charge of the Head Start program and she was heading to Vancouver for a conference. She was originally from Rankin Inlet. She told me of her adjustment to Taloyak when she got married - about being a newcomer, about experiencing darkness for 3 months for the first time.
She showed me pictures of her family and she shared stories of her grandchildren and how her one granddaughter calls her Mom and lives at her house a lot of the time. Her son is a hunter and hunts almost every day. He hunts for wolf, bear, whale, seals, fox....
In one of the pictures her collection of inuit scraping knives were all hung on the wall. I asked her if she still uses them for animals and she said yes and then she giggled "but also they're very good for cutting pizza". We laughed together.
I learned that she is an Inuk ( that is one person) and that Inuit (is more than one person)
She told me how even in her small community there can be hard feeling from one group to another. This is not surprising because people are the same everywhere.
She shared the struggles of her community and I felt the pain as she shared the sorrow she has from losing her sister to suicide. She told me of how she started a group where people talk and share their pain.
I admire this lady Elizabeth and all that she has experienced and done for her community. It was a rich experience and privilege to get to know her. I have to say it felt like I spent an afternoon with a kindred-spirit.
And that capped off my trip to Yellowknife. I would have to say that it truly was a trip of a lifetime.
