Posts tagged #Canadaland

Canadaland

 

Flashback Friday  

Is this Landscape for real?  

    Almost a year ago I started packing, packing up my life into little boxes, well bags, to bring down, down from Alaska, and my sweet little cabin, down to Madison, WI. When you move from a state like Alaska, you can't just bring everything you own, it's expensive to ship things from that state, and expensive to rent U-Hauls etc. So, I did what everyone else does, sold most of my belongings and tried to reduced the number of bags to bring on my Journey. It was quite remarkable that I who came to Alaskaland 7 years ago (then) with only two suitcases now had so much stuff. Where did all this stuff come from? Bike, cross-country skis, backcountry skis, climbing gear and the list goes on. You can't just not bring those things, they are expensive, and have a low value second hand, much lower than what they cost when you buy them. I had already been bringing things down from Alaska, during several trips, and I still had this much. Either way, packed the car and drove with W, into the wilderness, into the big land of Canada, into no mans world and the Yukon, following the Alcan. What a trip, what a landscape. Completely breathtaking. 

 
 
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
  with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence?
Then for God's sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
- Call of the Wild, Robert Service
 
 

    Have you ever been to Canada? If not you simply have to go!

 

In The Rearview Mirror pt.2

 

Flashback Friday

    In regular fashion Alaska showed it's rollercoaster climate in 2016. We went with no snow, yes NO NEW SNOW from late December to March, a whole 105 days, until we received 4 inches early April, that of course disappeared by the end of the day. The 2015/2016 winter season was pretty mild, because we didn't really dip down to -40 that regularly, we stayed around -4 to -22 F (-20 to -30 C), which was welcoming. I think I was kind of done with cold winters in Alaska by this point, even though I miss it so bad now. 

April

    I received my green card, which actually went pretty fast! Life went on at the cabin, water chores, wood chopping but no shoveling...Just kidding, then we got snow, but it melted pretty quickly! I went out to into the field with the mega super large truck, that literally probably is twice my size. Ice was still on the rivers, thick ice. April also mean longer days. In the wintertime you loose up to 7 minutes a day, so come spring that is what you gain, every day. By April 22 you could see the sunset after 9.30 pm, and it would still be light out at 10pm at the end of the month. As always April turns into a wet and muddy ordeal as snowmelt starts, once you get passed the cold temperatures and new snow that is. We experienced the earliest bud burst in history, a whole week before the usual green-up. April also brought the first mosquitos...

 
 

May

    All of a sudden May had arrived, with a record breaking pollen outburst. Rain showers mixed with pollenshowers. A friend of mine and I decided to go to Denali for one last hurrah before both of us moved out of the state. This was also the first time I went biking in Denali without running into a bear, the only animal we saw was the distinct ptarmigan. Had my last day in the field and at the end of May W arrived, and I packed the red Subi and life went on, and on for 4157 miles...6690 km. We drove through Alaska, then Canada, and Canada and Canada. The journey through Canada was the longest, we drove about 1962 miles (3157 km) give or take, through Canada. From Bozeman we drove via Yellowstone and Cody all the way to Madison, a journey about 1360 miles (2189 km). Through Canada we camped until we approached the Canada/American border. I had a sandwich we made from our own stuff, with turkey on it in Banff, that had gone bad and got food poisoning by the time we passed Calgary, thank god we had already decided to stay at a motel that night. Then on to Bozeman and Yellowstone for some fieldwork before our journey continued.

 
 

June

    June 1st was our last day on the road and we finally landed in Madison by the evening, after 12 days on the road. One of the first things we did was to buy an air conditioner, which is how I survived all summer. Madison is so far south, it is actually on the same latitude as southern France so it gets very hot in the summertime, too hot for me, and for long haired cats. Everything is so green and lush in Wisconsin, and I went to the Botanical gardens on one of the hottest days. One day we were driving back from some errands and discovered one of the bike races in Madison, namely a naked bike race, looks extremely dangerous if you ask me. W went back to Yellowstone for more fieldwork and I explored Madison. I also received the very last package from mom around this time, didn't know back then that it would be the last one I would get from her. 

 

The Land God Forgot - ANWR

The lonely sunsets flame and die;
The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
Where eager stars are diamond-bright.

Wednesday Thoughts

Arctic Air

    Those are the recent good news when it comes to the arctic! You can read more about it here! In recent days we have gotten less good news, like the warmest year in 30 years in Alaska. Earlier in December we read about the lack of sea ice in the arctic sea, and the warm temperatures we have seen there. And we have also read about the effects of the warming on polar bears, or the problem with the overfull polar bear prison in Churchill, Manitoba

It's a Burning Matter

    These news aren't necessarily new new, we know that the arctic are seeing the highest increase in annual average temperature, and on top of that Alaska is one of the regions where this warming has been the most prominent. We know that the drying of the landscape combined with an increase in lightning frequency are increasing the annual area burned in northwestern North America. Burning of forests are natural, especially boreal forests and specifically black spruce. The problem is when these fires happen more frequently, that is, burn the same area within the same time period as it once back in time only burned once. But it's not only the burning itself, after the fire we can see changes in for instance the species composition of the vegetation, regrowth and also the effect on permafrost, and subsequently freshwater chemistry.  

The beauty of the Arctic and Sub-arctic Region

    Have you ever driven through the vast landscape up north? The endless tundra, black spruce and mountains, weaved together in this place that we call earth? It's so beautiful, and seem like very few people have actually seen it, or been spell bound by its beauty. I am not one of those, because this beauty of the nature is what I live for. 

    Do you have a favorite region of the world? I am burning for the Arctic and Sub-arctic, but I know other people are burning for other parts of this world.