During December the dark was prevalent and the town was only graced
by the sun for 3hrs 27mins in the last days before the solstice. Often clouds obscured what light there was and
there were days when light was absent. I
had been warned about the dark. I had been advised that it can trigger
depression and anxiety. People suggested I pack a mood light in my 6 boxes to
ward off the effects. I was even given a dropper topped bottle of vitamin D to
aid in my resistance to this villainous darkness like some alchemy to vanquish Beelzebub
(Thank you MAK). I am happy to report that I did not succumb to the dark side
and while I am grateful for the concerns expressed by those that care about my
well-being the concern was not necessary. I’m happy to report that aside from
making me want to sleep more I came through unscathed. Certainly I am anxious to have more daylight
to provide more time for adventuring but by no means was it the hardship it
seems some thought I was doomed to.
There are some places further north where darkness reigns
for 23 hours in a day during parts of the winter. I don’t want to know how one would deal with
that. Robert Service always uses the dark as a metaphor for the villain and in
some cases it is literal and not metaphorical.
It’s not hard to imagine evil lurking in the dark and where there is
much dark one might expect much evil. This has proven to be the case I’m sorry
to say.
The last 2 weeks of December I returned to Ontario for the
Christmas Season. It was marvelous to see my clan and to bask in the warmth of
my Daughter’s home where she hosted much of the festivities for our small
family. The grandkids were full of
stories and play and I got to snuggle with a fat and happy baby which will warm
just about anyone. Tobogganing and
caroling and Tube sliding and talk over drinks filled the time and it passed by
all too quickly.
But the dark was
working its power in this village while I was happily occupied. It is, generally very quiet, this place where
the water flows. Yes, there are issues
here. That’s why I’m here. Alcohol abuse and dependence permeates life here
despite no sales in the community and limits on amounts one can legally
possess. And with the alcohol comes the side of human nature that no one ever
wants to see. I know of its power from
my earliest years: the power to create what Louis Stevenson named Mr. Hyde. So
in the days of my absence from here alcohol claimed another victim and did so
violently and in a relationship which should have only ever been marked by
maternal intimacy. A mother lost her life to a son.
The community rallied. Leaders met with the family, a drum
dance was held for them and for the healing of the community. The one passed on
was buried in and by the community and the one who had succumbed to the dark
and enacted this tragedy, the elders and leaders asked the community to forgive
and to meet their anger with love.
Just like at the solstice, when the sun begins its return
journey and the sky lightens longer and longer, as the days pass so too did
this hamlet emerge from that dark place. Community members met the plane when
the young man was being flown out to jail in Yellowknife and I hear that people
shouted to him words of support and encouragement and love. I returned to a community at peace after a
tragic event.
These have been dark days.
With the slow returning of the sun the cold has eased making
venturing out onto the ice more palatable. We’ve been averaging about -15°c for
the past couple of weeks but the ice that formed up in January is now measured
in meters. Stop. Think about that. Meters. Standing out in the open on the wind
cleared ice under a bright cloudless sky recently I looked down through this
giant sheet. The depth was impossible to estimate through the distortions but
the light penetrated deeply and I was reminded of taking the kids to the CN
tower last winter and standing, admittedly nervously, on the glass floor on the
observation deck. The experience on the ice brought that same pit of your
stomach reaction that it did being a kilometer overhead.
At a sharing circle I attend one of the group brought ice
for beverages. This consisted of a slab of crystal clear water cut from lake
earlier in the day. It tasted of nothing. It melted slowly. It had no imperfections,
no bubbles or frost. Light refracted within this natural prism. It was
beautiful. Once again I found myself being the silly southerner caught staring
and this time at the chunk of ice in the big plastic bowl, as if it was some
Penn and Teller trick. An elder cocked his head at me, raised his eyebrows and
smiled the way one might when lovingly patronizing a child. 
I’ve had only a couple of sightings of the Aurora Borealis
in my time here. Once was early in the morning as I was walking to work.
Initially I thought I was seeing just a strange cloud formation but as I
watched it morphed and snaked out across the sky. The second time was just the other night and
this time it was in the early evening and the light was again cloud like and
moved like an oscilloscope through the starry backdrop. I know that the northern lights are more colorful
depending on the night and location and tilt of the planet and alignment of the
stars and planets and how many hairs I have on my head that night but I’ve yet
to see the lights in colour. I understand this is a good month for viewing so I
remain hopeful and have my camera at the ready. I had to learn some advanced
camera techniques in preparation for my eventual attempts to photograph the Aurora
Borealis including how to turn the camera to some other setting than auto, how
to set an f-stop and shutter speed and how to pretend that I even know what
these things mean. It all seems to have something to do with how much light
gets into the magic box with the glass in front. Noaka appears to be yet another trickster. That said, my neighbor took some great shots
while he was on the ice road this week.
For him Noaka is tame. |
| Photo by Morris Neyelle |
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