Crystalizing Trees and other winter oddities

Winter



Climates can play tricks on a person. Canada is stereotyped as a frozen waste land and for at least part of the year this is true for the majority of the country. Huge areas of this nation are part of a polar desert. The old Discovery town site is near the souther edge of this climate. Souther edge or not winter is serious out here.




Here in a surreal land of stunted and twisted jack pine, naked rock waring a thin fig leaf of snow to hide its naked and possibly sinful geology, the temperatures have been for the last few weeks hovering around -20C or in more absolute terms 253 K. Kelvin makes every temper seem some what warmed with its ability to remind you of just how much colder it could get. In the last week the temperature too a drop down to the upper edges of the -30 domain. Down in that domain plastics become less so, synthetic fibers and linings can become stiff resulting a winter coat that feels brittle, gloves are traded in for mittens by the more sensible types and if you were not waring long johns before then you are now. Non of that is remotely surprising what comes as a surprise is two things beauty and temperance.




The beauty comes from the wonderful clear sky, the salmon sunrise/sets, the slowly crystalizing trees, the delicate patterns of snow drifts on the frozen lakes. There is the subliming beauty of the snow flakes themselves which through a quirk of this desert climate from large near perfect hexagonal crystals rarely seen out sided of text book illustration. All of this is in the process of being photographed.


Beauty as side the abuse of the work temperance stems from a recent warm day. The extended colder temperatures augment the feeling of what warm is. Yesterday was one such day the Hg rose to -8 C. Up in these temperate reaches, snow starts to have some stickyness, loosing its lighter then nanotech whipcream texture, naked skin can almost enjoy being removed form its gloves, beards stop farming icicles. The comfort of relative warmth comes at loosing sun light. With the sun rising at 10 am and setting not much after 3 pm any lose of sunlight is felt.

Solar Shots II

Winter is upon use in the north and has established a strong foot hold in the rest of Canada.  The sun's daily camios between late morning and early after noon provide enough light to prevent complete insanity and add delicate complex colors to a land scape that other wise would be little more then white on white.  So enjoy the winter, perhaps this locations best looking seasons. Having only gone through 2 and a half seasons here that could be too soon to tell.





 

Solar Shots II

Winter is upon use in the north and has established a strong foot hold in the rest of Canada.  The sun's daily camios between late morning and early after noon provide enough light to prevent complete insanity and add delicate complex colors to a land scape that other wise would be little more then white on white.  So enjoy the winter, perhaps this locations best looking seasons. Having only gone through 2 and a half seasons here that could be too soon to tell.





 

Solar Shots

The Light.

Early fall, when the sun still rose early in the morning rather getting up at times closer to the norms of a moody teenager as it does at this time of year. An addiction to light was developed. The colours could not have be expected. If they were to be named odd ball adjectives such as burning mango, ignited peach and burnt pink would come to mined but fall short of the mark.
Adding to the odd light are the North's skinny trees, all angles and lines, nothing here could be imagined for a southern.

So enjoy this falls blaze of glory now that winter is under way the light is needed.


 

Stop Thief.... I said Stop

Corvids, Crows, Ravens, Magpies and others, all birds of this family are known to be tricksters and just too smart for their own good more often then not. The Ravens up here are the size of a lap dog and at least twice as smart.

Crows in Kelowna (BC) would fight seagulls for the pleasure of eating leftover Mac Donald’s French fries. Now these crows could put up a good fight and would often win. The nature of the object of desire raises some doubts as to exactly how clever these birds really are, that is a separate post. In contrast a Raven from Yellow Knife or other Northern locals would employ a different strategy.

I will assume that the Raven has some desire for MD's French fries, rather then fight over left overs that nothing in its right mind would want to eat, the bird would take a direct approach. Theft

To gain access to French Fries it would find a unsuspecting mark, play cute to get the sucker to want to feed it. Once the Raven is close enough in its buddy would sneak up from behind steal your wallet and grab some change. The pair would then fly off and get them selves some fresh French Fries.

Now for a true story.
On an afternoon in early fall (August at this latitude) on a visit to a Drill to check its progress. As Mat the other geologist was chatting with driller’s helper I spotted a proud looking bird with an indistinct brown object in its beak.

The object in the birds clutches was the driller’s helper's sandwich. As it was Prior to our visiting the drill the Raven had made a solid attempt to steal that meal, having made some progress towards unzipping the bag the food was in.
Darrel, the helper put the bag in what should have been as safe place, under a peace of machinery of some sort.

Now is the Raven smarter then the helper I will not say for fear of encouraging the bird and possibly offending driller’s helpers everywhere. However, the bird’s brains were underestimated, as Mat was chatting the bird stepped in when now one was looking.

It pulled the medium sized backpack out from under the machine and climbing on to the bag pulling the zipper open.
The net result, one proud and well fed bird, a swearing human and evidence of tool use in wild animals.

So Long for Now

Alex

Post 1

Welcome to Northern Lites. It’s cold and dark out here at Discovery Northwest Territory.  At 90 Km north north east out of Yellowknife there is not a whole lot do while the others are watching Hockey.

So I shall fill the time with humorous adventures.