A Trek

Jan 28/20

Because of  freezing rain, I haven't been out to the woods for about a month. And I‘ve been wondering about the birds.

At the entrance to the marsh, I called out and the chickadees and nuthatches quickly flew to the feeding area. They remembered me, and, my, they were very hungry. 

A beautiful, moody afternoon sky.

Recently, I was looking through my photos of the Yukon Territory. For a few years, we lived in the Yukon in a house nestled down near a lake, where I could hear, as I lay in my bed, the plaintive call of the loons. We drove there from Calgary, Alberta along the, then, unpaved Alaska Highway.  Later we motored up the Dempster highway that begins south of Dawson City, Yk. to Inuvik, NWT. 

 Not a garage, at that time, for miles on that unpaved, potential tire-shredding shale road, so we carried full cans of gas and extra tires on the roof. With only the vast remote wilderness for company, and the trepidation welling up within because the road sometimes does double duty as a landing strip,  we slowly motored on, in intermittent fog, for hours, with thunderheads of dust rolling up behind us, without passing a car or seeing a single living thing.  (From Dawson City to Inuvik it’s a two day journey: 478.5 miles/ 742km.)  Eventually, dust bitten and weary we stopped at the halfway point in an oasis named Eagle Plains / Rat Pass. Given its remoteness, we had reservations about the place, but it turned out to be a clean and hospitable place to spend the night.

While driving the Dempster Highway you see the rugged Ogilvie and Richardson mountain ranges and, of course, the tundra where ghostly cloud shadows, driven by the wind, mysteriously track over the land. Gorgeous at any time of year, but in the fall it is absolutely breath taking. 

The pastel painting below was inspired by those photos. 

A few years later, still eager for adventure, we drove from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk along the ice road on Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean.  (That may be a story for another day.) I do, however, feel fortunate to have made that trip, because the ice road has recently been replace by a highway.

Happy trails. 'Til next time...

Cultivate Your Dreams 

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My Corner of the World

Skywatch

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