Raven says its time for a campfire

The longer days of spring make it easier to take the continuing cold weather. Despite the cool temperatures the sun is starting to melt the snowbanks and river ice. I have put away the skiies and spend more time day dreaming about my boat and pack. Chilkoot hikes and river trips are already planned. And backyard campfires and picnics can't be too far off.

Teslin Mini-Rendezvous and Community-based Research

The women's nail hammering competition. Frozen logs stiffly resist nails.

Early this month friends and I drove to Teslin, a Tlingit community about two hours east of Whitehorse for their spring mini-rendezvous. This year it was especially mini since low temperatures and a stiff onshore lake breeze meant "spring" was bitterly cold. The carnival, with its seriously local competitions, traditionally takes place on the lake. But this year they moved all the events with the exception of the ice fishing which didn't translate well to the community centre parking lot where a large bonfire provided a cheery respite to the wintery environment.

The competitions had started and we pounded nails into logs, I wasn't the fastest but at least I got mine in straight, and later heard about the tea boiling and bannock making competition. The scene looked quite odd afterwards, all traces of activity being cleaned up by dogs and ravens leaving behind only seven or eight small burnt holes sunk through the white ice down to the charred remains of wood on the gravel. Looked like a series of meteorite strikes.

In the evening there was a feast, spagetti and meat sauce, baked salmon and moose stew. About half the town showed up for the dinner in the hall with small children and parents patiently lining up and chatting while we loaded plates with warm dinner. Later there was the annoucement of the winners of the Mr and Mrs Teslin contest (a couple in their thirties with five kids who run the hotel and restautrant and volunteer for everything) and a presentation by Alison, an MA student from an Alaskan University who spent the past 18 months working with the community on a cultural tourism plan. She had brought up a Chicken Dancer from the Siksika Reserve just outside of Calgary, her home town, and a storyteller from northern Saskatchewan. The feast and the entertainment were her thanks to the community for their support of her thesis research and a chance to present her findings. Things went reasonably well, the usual diversion form the "official" plan well within the norms of Yukon communities, but Alison remained somewhat tense throughout. It was her first "show" of this kind.

 By the end of the dinner everything had gone well, the young chicken dancer performed a vigourous dance concluding with a breathless warning not to take up smoking, like he did, as it made it hard to dance. Alison's video couldn't be made to run on the computer so we skipped over that with a few words and then we all sang happy birthday to two of the Mr & Mrs Teslin children whose birthdays bracketed the feast day. Then everyone, except the dishwashers and table wipers, went next door to watch the hockey game in the just completed arena. We got a tour of the workout room with all its fancy equipment, heard about the challenges of scheduling things, some women don't like men to be in there while they're on the machines, and waded through a huge crowd of small children playing in the lounge. There was a 50-50 draw as a benefit for Rosss River, a nearby Dene community. Their arena and community centre burned down earlier in the week so there was some desolation up the CANOL Road. As people churned their pockets for coins and bills, half the money went into a large coffee can as the prize and the other half was meticulously taped onto a hockey stick that would be sent up to Ross River. It was a pretty amazing hockey stick by the end of the evening.

As we headed out to the car we ran into a concerned group standing around Alison and a group of locals in the lobby. Apparently while backing out her parking spot, Amanda tore the bumper off the front of the newly crowned Mrs Teslin's car. Amanda's experiences in community-based research was increasing expontentially. We headed outside, the wind had stopped, a cresent moon beamed through the mist and it started to snow.

The Anglican Church in old Teslin.

On Tuesday at the coffee shop back in Whitehorse I heard that Alison's Sunday morning consultation meeting had gone very well. People stayed an extra hour and congratulated her on doing such a good job. Yukon communities gain much by opening themselves to young people learning the ropes, and their generous sharing helps shape a better future.

Winter visit to the Chilkoot Trail

Bennett Railway Station. A 3 metre high snow drift reminded us unnecessarily of the strong winds that battered us on the trip into the north end of the Chilkoot Trail.

Christine and the young university student doing the visitor survey for winter users.

Carcross with Keish's (Skookum Jim) house in the centre built from the profits of his gold discovery on Bonanza Creek.

Carcross, a beautiful spot on the north beaches of Bennett Lake.

The Hangi: A Maori Feast in your own kitchen

Opening the hangi and lifting out the baskets of food.

Last February our family celebrated Waitangi Day in the small village of Okains Bay on the South Island of New Zealand. Waitangi Day is the national celebration of the treaty signed by Maori Iwi (clans) and the British in 1840. At Okains Bay the day's celebrations included a replication of the original arrival of the Maori in Aotearoa, a welcome to the Marai and a hangi. "Laying a hangi" describes the preparation of this traditional feast. A large hole is filled with stones aned heated with a fire. Then large baskets of kumara, potatoes, chicken, mutton and sausages are laid in and covered with cloth and a layer of sand. Left overnight to cook the hangi was opened in early afternoon and served out to the visiting crowds.

Cadets served out the meal to the hundreds who came to celebrate.

This year we were back home in the Yukon. And a cold February seemed a good time to celebrate Waitangi Day and remember the warm weather of a New Zealand summer. With help from my daughter in New Zealand I attempted a small scale northern Canadian version of the hangi. The following recipe turned out a credible hangi, at least according to my wife.

The backyard being both frozen and under a metre of snow I decided to use our slow cooker to lay the hangi. I started by marinating boneless chicken thighs overnight in a mix of tamari sauce, peppered olive oil, a generous splash of liquid smoke to try and replicate the hangi fire, smashed garlics and thin leaves of fresh ginger. In the morning I went outside and cut a number of clean willow stalks placing a layer on the bottom of the cooker to keep the meat out of the water. I figured these would also give it a Yukon flavor. I covered the willows with a layer of smoked side bacon and then I dumped in seared medallions of veal and reindeer / jalapeno sausages.

Then came the vegetables. Kumara not being a common item in Yukon gardens I substituted large chunks of squash - skin on, sweet potatoes, onions -  peeled and quartered, and two hand fulls of garlic cloves, skin on. The whole is covered with a thick layer of finely chopped cabbage, salt and pepper and an abundance of smoked paprika. I added a cup of water laced with more liquid smoke and popped on the lid of the slow cooker. Set at 200'F I let it cook for eight hours, but six probably would have been fine, and ten wouldn't have hurt it either. Slow cooking is a forgiving art and makes a great hangi.

You may also want to check my 2011 November visit to Maori sites of importance in Taranaki.

Winter Views from our Bedroom

Aurora March 1, 2011

Spring begins with the arrival of lengthening days. Arctic high pressure systems have pushed out the low cloud of the Pacific and we have cold temperatures but beautiful clear skies. We live on the east side of an eskar rising out of the Takhini River valley. Our second floor bedroom provides spectacular views. Recent sunspot activity has revived the Aurora which we haven't seen much of in recent years.

Late afternoon clouds blowing off the mountains across the nearby Yukon River valley provide a dramatic canvas for the setting sun. It is easy to slip into romantic notions of the "savage wilderness" that surrounds us.

 

However, the storied egg rock at the upper reaches of Lake Laberge reminds us of the long human presence here. It is on banks of the Yukon River just below the rock where Tachokaii, the hero figure of the Northern Athapaskan people, invented the birch bark canoe and began his journey through the world.

Total Eclipse of the Sun

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In ancient days an eclipse of the sun was a dramatic, frightening experience. Many cultures worshiped the sun, others had stories of the hard days before the sun made its daily track across the sky. The sudden waning of the sun was thus not only terrifying during the two hour shadowing, the event also seemed an evil omen, the sun might fail and life would cease. The Greek word ékleipsis conveys this terror of “the abandonment.” These celestial portents were the earliest targets of intellectual endeavor. Not because they were easy questions, rather they were questions essential to human survival. Today we look forward to these solar phenomena with interest. However, there are still aspects of our world that cause the same trauma and lasting fear.

After a day in town I came home and clicked on the radio for the 4 o'clock news. The leader was the just occurring earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, the home of our daughter Erin and her husband Stephen. Only last fall they went through the large earthquake that rattled Christchurch during the first notes of dawn. The 7.1 scale quake was deep and 40 km from the city. Water and sewer lines in Christchurch ruptured, electricity supplies were quickly reestablished and except for a number of the older brick buildings downtown most structures needed only relatively minor repairs.

I quickly went up stairs and put up our internet ears – skype, email and facebook – waiting for a note from the kids. Last fall Erin called within an hour, she'd had to ride her bike to some friends across town as their phone and power were out. In the following days there had been a solid community camaraderie as people shared their stories and helped each other. However as the time of limited water supplies and ongoing aftershocks continued, dozens every day, the excitement wore off and everyone just got crabby with the privations. However by Christmas everything was pretty much back to normal. Even the cat, Smoag, began to relax as the aftershocks diminished.

Last week was different. The internet ears heard nothing. I checked Erin's facebook page, not feeling well this morning so relaxing on the couch at home, maybe going to uni for lunch. Time: 2 hours before the quake. I sent a note to our son, then opened the New Zealand Herald. My throat choked and my eyes teared as I saw the first photos and started to read the minute by minute blogging by journalists. The quake, though only a half of last fall's was near the surface and right under Christchurch. It occurred just at the end of lunch, downtown was crowded, buses full of people had been crushed by falling debris, the steeple of the large stone cathedral downtown had collapsed, two large office buildings were utterly destroyed. There were people being killed.

Silence.

The phone rang! but only with solicitous calls from friends. Facebook started to buzz with queries. We watched the evening news, a TV screen of collapsing buildings, and wrecked cars and bloodied people was too much. I started to think of dead children.

After a restless night we decided to go to work. Anything out of the ordinary would have been an admission of the not possible. There were encouraging notes from Erin's friends in Christchurch, hadn't seen her but sure she's all right. At work Joy got a call, a friend's daughter in Christchurch had twittered home within an hour of the quake. Two hours later, twenty four hours in the shadow, another twitter, Erin and Stephen were okay. Relief, but no relaxation.

Like an eclipse, the sun shines again. What has not returned however are casual assumptions of life. The unthinkable abandonment remains uneasily present.

.For my daughter's thoughts on the earthquake.

Hockey Day in Canada hits Whitehorse

The crowds head over to the shinny rink by the SS Klondike

This year Hockey Day in Canada came to the Yukon Territory. February is celebrate winter month in Whitehorse - the Yukon Quest, the Available Light film festival, Frostbite music festival, the Yukon Ultra (nearly naked people running hundreds of kilometers through the Yukon bush) and Rendezvous winter festival (chain saw chucking, flour packing, can can dancing in snowshoes, Yukon specific sort of skills) and this year Hockey day piled in. We're all exhausted and its only mid-month.

Hockey day is actually more like a week. Early on Kluane National Park staff set up their hockey rink on the lake about 15 km out of town. With the rink in place the team anxious awaited teams to trounce.

The Zamboni cometh, 15 kilometres from town. (Parks Canada)

Further north in Dawson the Klondike Nuggets once again challenged the Ottawa Senators to another round of games with the same lop-sided but otherwise honourable result as they've had since their first Stanley Cup challenge in 1905.

The Yukon River hockey rink in Dawson.3,500 kilometers of arena parking. (Parks Canada)

The Governor-General (the one with the Gold skates of of course) hangs with the Nuggets in front of the net. (Parks Canada)

Although these prelude events were important the real action happened on Saturday noon on the shinny rink by the SS Klondike in Whitehorse. There the powerhouse teams of Parks Canada faced off with the Museum Monsters. Play was fast and I was amazed at how breathless you could get on a rink only 30 feet long.

The Hockey Cards - clipped and save for your collection.

Yukon Quest

The Yukon Quest, the sled dog race from Whitehorse to Fairbanks, Alaska, started today. For the next ten to fourteen days, twenty five mushers - 19 men and 6 women - will travel 1000 miles (over 1600 km) along frozen rivers and through the snow covered hills and forests of the Yukon River basin. The youngest is 21 and there are seven mushers over 50 years old. Each sled has 14 dogs.

With only one mandatory stop at Dawson City, about half way, they are otherwise camping out with their dogs every night. Today the temperature in Whitehorse was -15 C, almost too warm for the dogs, but as they head north they will feel better. Carmacks two days away is supposed to be -20 and Dawson five or six days out almost -30. They have to carry all their camp gear, dog feed, straw for dog bedding and replacement harnesses, dog booties and spare batteries for their headlamps, there's no lights on out there to set up camp.

This year the race starts in Whitehorse. We met with friends for an early breakfast in a downtown restaurant and exchanged stories. About 10:30 everyone in town heads down to the river bank to watch the mushers prepare their sleds and get their eager dogs hooked into harness. The parking lot is a squirming mass of barking dogs chained to their trucks, the sleds come off the roof of the box and are packed. Then, as race time approaches, each musher and his team of handlers and local volunteers lay out the harness rope and the dogs are brought out in one and twos and hooked onto the line. The dogs are wildly excited now, they've been training all winter for this run and they want to run!

Two nights previous we attended the Quest start banquet. Along with a slide show of past races, the first was in 1984, silent auction for everything from artwork to parkas to large quantities of dog food, a grand buffet dinner suitable for someone about to spend two weeks winter camping in the Yukon, the rest of us ate along in sympathy, and the recognition of the return of a injured veterinarian, the highlight of the evening was the draw for race starting positions. Each musher came up in turn, drew his tag from a fur hat and said a few words. Most acknowledged their sponsors, no one races sled dogs because there's money in it, a few wished their colleagues a good race, and all of them acknowledged their partners who were at home with the kids (and all the rest of the dogs - most have another 30 or 40 dogs and a couple have well over a 100) or out in the parking lot packing up groceries and supplies for the race.

The Quest relies on volunteers and the volunteers and the mushers rely on the Executive Director to keep everything on track. My old Parks colleague, Georgina, is the ED this year. Mahsi cho Georgina.

The first team heads for the start line. There's a quick count down and the dogs prance out of the gate. The sled and musher magically follow on behind, schuss quickly through the crowd stretched out for several hundred meters and then slide down onto the river ice and are gone... then the next, and the next, and the next until they've left us all behind. Before them the grandeur of the winter river and the quiet landscape of the Yukon.