Yukon bush life

“Sra Niday” means the sun is shining in our local Hän language. And it really did, for weeks. I don’t know Hän for “How the hell can it be summer already?” or “Jesus Christ, is that a mosquito?”   Things have got out of hand. A warm chinook wind roared through, hot as a hair dryer. The snow is melting, the trails have gone slushy, our meat’s thawing and there are spots opening in the creek. It’s May in March and we are reeling with it. Across river, the cliffs rumble and crack with avalanches.  Snow tunnel by the old cabin Earlier in the month, we had the most astounding March weather. Days bright enough to hurt your eyes and skies so deep you feel you can fall up into them.  Trip to visit a disused communications station in the mountains The nights were ice cold and clear, down to twenty below with a hazy green aurora rippling in a wide arc around the North Pole, brushing the tops of the hills.  Our mo...

Winter held on until yesterday but today we are at +7c and our beautiful white world is fading fast. I’ve been “out”, as people say here, nearly all of March. I had to go to England to buy a Canadian-made log scribe, as I shall explain later. On my return the Yukon was resplendent with spring blue skies and dazzling white, so bright your eyes go blotchy when you step in the cabin and you fall over things. The top surface of the snow has thawed and refrozen giving it a shiny crust and the worn look of an old suit. In the woods it is dimpled with spruce needles and crud and everything looks like it needs a good sweep. The yard looking cruddy The river ice has started to sink. The jumble ice and boulder fields we fought to make trails through in December are now pillowy humps of sagging white. Between them are wide, flat snowfields. Holding hands with the Inukshuk iceman that appeared on the trail (See footnote) We’re hurtling towards 24...