Northern De-lights

So winter landed and reared its ugly head last week and scared the @#%* out of me. I couldn’t help but wonder what I had gotten myself in to. We had several days of bad weather, including snow, sleet and hail, gusts up to 90 km/h and cold! I walked home one day in a blizzard and the wind was blowing so hard the next morning that I could feel the house trembling as I was lying in bed. At home (Nova Scotia!) the first snow of the season usually suggests that Christmas is fast approaching, so all this snow has been giving me those warm, fuzzy Christmassy feelings. I have to keep reminding myself that it is only October!

I’m delighted to report however that winter went back to sleep for a while and it turns out that fall is to last longer than a couple of weeks after all. It went up to 8 degrees over the long weekend, and it has been clear and beautiful all week.
I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with friends on Sunday night. There was so much food! And then I went for a long stroll on Thanksgiving Monday down by the bay and discovered that the sea lift is in! The water was calm and the sun was sparkling off the surface, it was beautiful… and there she was, the ship that was carrying my big blue beast! The great Explorer...

She’s a bit old and rusty around the edges, but I have confidence that she will carry me around this winter on those snowy, blustery days, and keep me dry from the rain.

The best thing about clear skies is... northern lights! A friend called me the other night and asked if I wanted to go out and check out the northern lights with him outside of town. He keeps his eye on this website that tracks solar activity and gives an indication of the best nights for viewing northern lights, and it was supposed to be a good one. We went out and I just couldn’t believe it... they were amazing. There were probably half a dozen bands streaking across the sky directly overhead from one horizon to the other. They were weaving, joining together and breaking apart... and when they were right overhead to could actually see them flowing and streaming like a river. I don’t know how else to describe it. It kind of gives me an eerie feeling... like in ghost busters when the clouds start to open up and swirl around... you just know something serious is about to go down.

Last night I was walking dogs at the shelter and when I went in the building the sky was clear, no northern lights to be seen. Then when I took black Molly out (Molly is a dog , not a fish... a little fish tank humour for all you aquarium lovers out there), the sky lit up! I was stumbling along behind Molly with my eyes on the sky. These ones were quite different from the ones the night before. The night before they were smooth and they flowed like water... these ones were like icicles stabbing down from the sky and they moved much faster... like a set of chimes in a gale. And there were hints of pinks and blues and purples, which aren’t as common on Baffin Island as in other areas. There no capturing those ones on film... that is something you just have to see.

Now for the downside of the nicer weather... stinky garbage fire! You may or may not have heard (and you probably haven’t) but the Iqaluit dump is on fire! It has been on fire since September 24th, spewing toxic smoke into the air, and there’s no stopping it... they have to wait for it to burn out because it is deep in the pile and they say it could be burning for months!

Thankfully the prevailing winds blow the smoke away from town. Early in the week though there was no wind so the yellowish smoke was drifting into town creating a haze and closing schools and offices. It smells pretty bad and people have been complaining about headaches and other ailments. It’s not so bad today though, so I am working away, and I better get back at it...