Last night was my first night back in the Arctic after 2 weeks of thawing out in New Brunswick, followed by my fleeting spell in Montréal. I’ve returned to Tasiujaq, arriving just a few hours short of a blizzard.
After spending some time formulating my previous post of awesome, I glanced out my living room window. The village stood motionless before me, like the illustration on the cover of a Jack London novel. I saw not one meandering skidoo or roaming dog; I heard not a sound from the team of sled dogs usually howling behind my house or from the local children usually out playing Hide and Seek under my house. Rather, I saw winter epitomized in the panorama before me – uninhibited, unhindered and raw.
I felt an instantaneous sense of cabin fever. I hate to say it, I even felt a sense of dread. I love the north – I love my job, I love the people, and I generally find great fascination in the peculiar magnificence that is life in the north. But I also know that 5 months from now, it will still be freezing and there will still be snow – the weather will show little difference. Winter here seems to persist for 8 months of the year.
After a period of wondering, if I’d felt this way a mere 4 hours after my return, whether I’d manage to survive the 5 months ahead of me, I decided, despite -45 degree (Celsius) temperature and raging winds, to dress myself in a mishmash of winter attire and go for a walk. Bundled in my thickest of wool socks, new winter boots, long johns, jeans, 2 sweaters, a parka, balaclava and toque, as well as 2 scarves, I was prepared to confront the elements on a little stroll before the blizzard really got underway. As I fought brain freeze and frozen eyelashes, I discovered my seventh awesome: arctic snow. Inspired to write about arctic snow in this post of awesome, I dedicated the remainder of my walk on trying to collect ways in which I can describe it, though like many things in this majestic land, I can’t sufficiently put it into words. Here is the best I can do:
Arctic snow is a breed of snow entirely of its own. In a habitat much too cold to hold even a pinch of moisture, each flake exists discretely, as though reluctant to bond with another for fear of getting bogged down and trampled. Packed tight with repeated impressions, the flakes that couldn’t escape the weight of a footstep or a skidoo thickly coat the ground. In spots lie mounds of snow accumulated over time, trapped inert, like a traffic jam.
Walking on arctic snow elicits a sound reminiscent of styrofoam, or of charcoal when you press too hard. It squeaks pronouncedly as it shifts under your feet. In a way, it gives me a calm and rhythmic reassurance of my presence on the otherwise barren land – with every step I can be heard, even if there is no one there to listen.
Often when I walk late at night, the snow’s the only other tangible thing moving. I like to watch it swirl before me. Sometimes I imagine it liberated, just for a moment, from the wind that otherwise dictates its every move. I wonder, if the snow could leave a mark – if each flake were a paintbrush – just what kind of picture it would paint. Would it be entirely unconstrained and impromptu – each movement decided on a whim?
Or would it be systematic and controlled – choreographed for my personal entertainment? As wind and snow rip with a howl under houses and through the mountains, I imagine each flake brought together in a momentary synchronized dance. Then, like an artist blowing the dust off of a finished portrait, the wind carries it away just as quickly as it carried it there. The snow’s torn away in a whirlpool gone haywire, and unveiled is the layer, once again, stamped with a collection of footprints – evidence of the day’s motion frozen in time.
