Driving in the Yukon requires a quick pace. Two hundred kilometres to Whitehorse, the forest fire smoke clouds the beautiful mountains so there is no reason to dawdle.

George Johnston Museum. This place is an enigma, it is a museum about this place, but this place belies buildings and staticity. People ask me how long is required to view the museum properly, well this is my second season here and I feel I haven't done it justice. I think all places require an episode of a lifetime, if not just all the gosh-danged whole lifetime. But, having said that, it seems it is the rare few that finish a lifetime feeling they have done all they can or that they wanted. So, to view and understand the George Johnston Museum, Teslin, the Southern Lakes and all that comes with them through history and with the future I would answer that it is always a project that has to be left undone, because there are others coming up behind that need to be weaved into the overarching story.

I find it is neccessary to drive fast and take long breaks, which evens out to a legal 90kms/hr. Perhaps that is a defense against speeding tickets? Having said that, I haven't seen a police car since I have been here. Including the usual Haines Junction plywood cut-out car... where is it? Live fast and take leisurely breaks, not a bad mantra for a satisfying life.

Having participated in racing, and also participated in slow, experiential canoe and hiking trips I see that both have their allure. Barry Lopez writes about months spent in one position in the sand dunes of the midwest, and about the excitement and involvement of such an experience. But he also discusses the joy of movement through place and time and the fluid motion inducing joy. Choose one or the other? Choose your own adventure? Jump around between the two in a somewhat bewildering jilty lifestyle?

It is wonderful to have the opportunity to savour these thoughts.

I can almost see the 'on second thought' that flashed into the mind of this artist after writing the little 415881040 Call me (heart).

She would have stepped back to review the legibility of her offer, before realizing that... perhaps her cry for love would be taken more seriously if she wrote it (not only) AGAIN, but also MUCH BIGGER.

Or perhaps, she didn't receive any calls from the first note, so came to the conclusion that her advertising needed to intensify...

Regardless, perhaps I should call this number and find out...

Aurora and Jannaurora

Ah, aurora and a self timing shutter speed. How much fun can a girl possibly have all by herself?

No Brakes, No Ipod vs. Brakes, Ipod

I certainly have a hangover from my time spent in new-agey, hippy Whitehorse and Vancouver. It is the third day of my juice fast, and yesterday, to supplement my enlightenment I went to an expensive tea store and bought two types of tea - one called pleasure, the other clarity. Incidentally pleasure is purple and clarity is green, I find that funny, but perhaps that is because I am a bit loony.
It is 6:30 in the morning, or to practice the norskkurs a little, it is halv sju i morn. I am going to ramp up the new-agey, hippy enlightenment and have a little yoga session soon, since the sun just is starting to creep into the sky.
Yesterday I had a little ipod crisis, a little materiality sneaking into and tinging all this clarity that I am having, since I had lost the pod for a few days. But then I found it at the bottom of my laundry basket, put it on, turned it on, and cycled into the centrum at full volume with almost no brakes on the bike at all. Definitely it was time for some maintenance and tender loving care for good, sweet G-Force Orion.
The centrum was quite busy, and I met a friend for coffee. Coffee, which incidentally is not a very good addition to a fast, but because my motto for myself and everyone is 'do whatever you like, whenever you like': the coffee didn't break any rules, or at least I just shifted my fast-policy a little. After a nice chat about jazz and facebook, we wandered around the centrum... this is when we stumbled upon the expensive tea shop, and where I purchased both pleasure and clarity.
Etterpå, (or finally) I bid him a fond farewell; he went off to Svalbard and I went to the outdoor stores where I pursued the other Vancouver-y fetish of gear coveting. Now I have a nice flowery chalk bag, and some new boots.
But now I return to the ipod crisis, I was half way home when it abruptly and rudely stopped working. There were a few thoughts that sprung to my mind, the first was that I had just been listening to a schlocky pop song and that the ipod must be rebelling against it, the second was that it was funny that I had thought that I had lost it, but then I found it, and all of a sudden it was broken. Is it better to lose something or break something?
As I rode past the local grocery store, I saw that my lovely housemate Samuel's bike was parked outside. I went in to say hello, he immediately scrutinized my backpack and said, "How much room do you have in there?" So I got to relive the Klondike gold rush a little by slogging a thousand pounds of milk, butter, and flour up the hill to the house. Hmm, but he likes to bake bread and share it around, and that is a good type of housemate to have. If he wants to continue doing that, then I will continue hefting groceries from time to time.
At home I saw that my handy-dandy Yukon Mac dealer was online, and after about one second he had the answer to fix the ipod, which is now neither broken or lost. A much better outcome than my earlier options presented. And we fixed the brakes on my bike too. I am taking the signs of the appearance of the pleasure and clarity tea, the found and repaired ipod, and the adjusted brakes, as evidence of my nascent enlightenment. Oh, and the appearance of the new chalk bag just adds evidence to this theory.

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Oh, and Ørndalen Art Council now has pictures up of the entries for the competition... here...

Glowing sun and gentle light yesterday, fluttery snow obscuring the sky today. Weather is so beautiful in its changeability.

Visiting parents are arriving soon, I hope that they will enjoy the homestay that I have arranged. I don't have to worry about whether there will be aurora during their trip, thank goodness, because Vanderhoof receives its fair share. Now that I think about it, I should arrange a visit to see some reindeer, and I hope that we will circulate through all of these museums that I haven't had a chance to visit as yet.

After reviewing some thoughts from the Arctic Discourses conference, I find I am interested in the relation between the driving force of the past and the present interacting in ways that create what is unfolding. I suppose it is sort of a conflict based idea with precedence on the thoughts that meet from these temporal spaces. hmm.

~~~

These photos are from a few weeks ago, and are of a snowshoe trip , with the exception of the last one which is of a funny nachtspiel with a salmagundi of germans.

What are the names of the five continents? Did you know that N and S America are one continent, and that Antarctica doesn't make the cut? Well that is what I learned after playing Geografi with my friend Sabine...

Mariana is a volunteer, but surely is a priceless soul at the international student cafe, Bodega.


This is a funny picture that needs no explanation...

Arctic Discourses 2008 has been pretty time consuming over the last two weeks, but perhaps there are few better ways to consume time...

Sammi man performing a yoik at the reception for the Arctic Discourses conference.

The Sami building at UiT, what a well designed gathering area.

The conference participants enjoyed a fine dinner in this swanky residence. Ah, to rub shoulders with the glitterati of Tromsø. These rooms are within the Mack Brewery, and we were served soup, of all things, for dinner. With nerves of steel I nonchalantly enjoyed my soup in the midst of all of these Persian rugs and decadent furnishings.


A little evening dance with a mysterious white stranger.

Speeches in the Ølhallen, or beerhall, with other conference participants.