Elusive Aurora (Borealis)

About 10pm, Tuesday night, in spite of frigid temperatures, news of a stronger-than-average solar burst enticed me out of doors in search of the elusive Aurora. I say "elusive" because in the past few years I've noticed a trend toward fewer Aurora sightings and, even when spotted, the color (usually just green) has been less vibrant, even milky.

I also say "elusive" because in the ten years I've lived in this village, I've never been able to capture the Northern Lights photographically. And even these meager shots in the dark (literally) were taken without a tripod, so they're nothing to brag about from a technical standpoint.

Still, I feel like one of those Sasquatch hunters who has finally snagged a clear, indisputable photo of his quarry! I caught the Aurora in my own back yard! How terrific is that?

Was it worth kneeling in the snow?

...in the dark?

...@ 47 below?

...while brushing frost off my eyelashes and nose?

Completely!

And a fun little factoid about wearing snow pants and a heavy parka is that no one can see the pajamas underneath! :)



So if you're interested in the Aurora Borealis, here are some extremely informative sites that delve deeper into both the scientific and photographic aspects of the subject. I found graphs that illustrate and explain the dearth of aurora sightings I've noticed over the last few years. How validating! :)

Aurora Hunter

Aurora Forecast-Geophysical Institute

The Aurora Page

Hunting The Great Alaskan Aurora

And if you want to see spectacular photographs and an awesome video of Tuesday night's aurora activity in Canada and the UK...check this out! (scroll all the way to the bottom for the video)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2091117/The-midnight-phoenix-rises-Biggest-solar-storms-seven-years-create-spectacular-northern-lights.html

Equinox Paradox

A funny thing (always) happens on the way to the Equinox.

Just when the sun begins to creep a few degrees toward Spring (and you think things are going to warm up), that's when the real cold sets in.

Wind	from the SSE (160 degrees) at 7 MPH (6 KT)
Visibility	10 mile(s)
Sky conditions	clear
Temperature	-47 F (-44 C)
Windchill	-70 F (-57 C)

More of the same is forecast for the week.

Winter never relents without a fight and it'll be stirring things up for months to come.

Fortunately, for me, staying warm won't be a problem. Nothing is toastier than a traditional fur-lined parka and I've got one (with a brand new cover)!





Quyanaq to Kate for the beautiful new atikæuk! You did an excellent job!




(By the way, the photo at the top of the page was taken with my nifty new camera that takes cool panoramic photos. Click on the pic to see a larger image).

Moonlight? Spotlight? Or what?

A little clarification.

That's a snow fence in the foreground, the shadowed riverbank just beyond, and the frozen river is that white space between the two. Beyond that, it's all tundra, flat tundra, without trees or any other sort of obstruction, which makes that sliver of laser-bright luminescence all the more noticeable...and strange.

In all the years that I've lived in the Arctic, I've never seen anything like this. There have been plenty of clear nights in which the moon illuminated the entire snow-covered expanse creating an ocean-like reflection as far as the eye could see.

This night was different.

It's as if a spotlight was trained on one, specific, amazingly limited area.

Very pretty. But kind of eerie.



Sort of Twilight Zone-ish...without the pesky aliens.

At least, as far as I know.

Snowbow or Icebow?

Not a rainbow, not a sun-dog, this bow was the handiwork of Mr. Sun...painting ribbons with ice crystals across our northern October sky.



Of course, Old Man Winter had a hand in it too.



The colors were much more vivid than these photos reveal.



Snowbow or icebow?
Either way, it was pretty cool!

Good Intentions

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we plant…and then we leave.

My intentions were good.

1. Plant seeds.

2. Harvest vegetables.

3. Stock freezer.

4. Cook like someone living on the road system. (Cha-ching!)

Sadly, somewhere between planting and cooking things went terribly wrong.

I planted too late, didn’t have any stakes, and was forced to leave for vacation with the disappointing knowledge that I’d likely return to find my mini-garden full of sticks and dried up leaves.

What a surprise to find an overgrown jungle crowding the pane of my classroom window, thick ropey stems straining toward sunlight, leaves pressing for position against the glass.

Not only had the plants survived, they had thrived!

It seems I’d underestimated the botanical will to live.

Of course, no one was there to pollinate the blossoms, so the profusion of foliage was just that—a matted mess—lots of green, but nothing to glean.

Heavy sigh.

Sometimes I feel like a walking idiom. I bite off more than I can chew while simultaneously lighting both ends of my candle with all those sizzling hot irons that I keep in the fire.

And I plant seeds that I don't have time to care for.

It’s hard not to see the parallel in other areas of my life and such were my heavy thoughts as I snipped stems and tossed the tangle into the trash.

Imagine my astonishment upon finding these...

My heart did a little happy dance. :)

So maybe there’s hope for a walking idiom after all?

You Snooze....You Lose

Last night I was exhausted.

I don't think I've ever thanked God for a Friday with more heartfelt gratitude. Juggling girl's conditioning sessions, GED instruction, and managing the student store alongside regular teacherly responsibilities has my brain and body reeling. When my head finally hit the pillow I was, as they say, dead to the world.

Most nights, that would be just fine, but just a few minutes ago I trekked over to the post office and discovered that my much-needed snooze session came with a price. Apparently, there was a polar bear in town and it was actually right outside my window!

Being dead to the world, I had no clue.

This is my ninth school year in this village. In that time, this is maybe the fourth polar bear that has ventured down from the coast. However, it is the first time that one has wandered among the houses. I heard from neighbors that the outside dogs didn't even bark (smart dogs...they know when to keep a low profile). No one knew the bear was there until one poor teenage girl, walking all alone, rounded a building and found herself face-to-face with what could have been her worst nightmare....only yards away.

Don't worry. The quick-thinking girl jumped into a nearby house immediately. She's fine, though understandably shaken. I heard that the bear was walking toward her as she scrambled into the building. I shudder to think what would have happened if one of our little ones had been in the same position. Would they have had the presence of mind to get away or would they have just stood there gaping or crying, frozen in terror?

Hopefully, we'll never have to learn the answer to that question, but there are murmurings that this bear was not alone (two more sets of tracks have been found), so it's a concern.

Polar bears are not easy for me to write about. On one hand, they are magnificent animals that fill me with curiosity and admiration. I would have been thrilled to see a polar bear sniffing around my window! I think most people feel the same way. I was completely mesmerized by the video about Klondike and Snow (the polar bear cubs that were raised at the Denver Zoo years ago) and I am envious of those who live in the coastal villages where bear watching is commonplace.

Unfortunately, when you live in the Arctic, there is always the other hand to think about. In spite of all the movies and commercials and photographs-in-emails that depict bears as cute, cuddly, fun-loving creatures...or even aloof, independent ones...the bottom line is that they are wild animals with no sense of right or wrong or sentimentality beyond survival. A hungry, wandering bear might prefer to eat fish or a seal, but if there doesn't happen to be any fish or seals around at the moment...a defenseless dog or even a person would certainly be fair game.

That leaves me with very mixed feelings...especially now that one has crossed the line.

Finally!

After weeks of waiting and whining, we finally got a little snow. For the last three or four days, my morning walk to school has been a little crunchier, a little whiter, and I'm loving it! Even the lake and river are showing signs of freeze-up. Maybe fall ice fishing will commence on time after all.

Another long-awaited event (at least for me) occurred just last night. The clouds finally parted momentarily and I was able to catch a brief glimpse of Jupiter and its moons! I wasn't sure I'd be able to see anything. I don't have a powerful telescope at my disposal, but I do have some nifty (and gargantuan) binoculars.



Jupiter was easy enough to see with the naked eye, but I could only see the moons through my binoculars and (surprisingly) through my camera.

Catching sight of this very cool cluster made the cold legs and frozen fingers completely worth it!

Wind	from the WSW (250 degrees) at 13 MPH (11 KT)
Visibility	10 mile(s)
Sky conditions	mostly clear
Temperature	19.0 F (-7.2 C)
Windchill	6 F (-14 C)
Dew Point	17.1 F (-8.3 C)
Relative Humidity	91%

I know this is not impressive photography. I wasn't really expecting to get great pictures, but I thought it couldn't hurt to try.

I had no tripod and just set my Sony DSC-H50 on ISO. I know there are probably settings that I could have used to get better photos, but I am admitting complete ignorance here. I have not read my owner's manual and have not experimented with settings much.

And still, my little camera does the best it can do under the circumstances. (Great little camera that it is).

This was the best shot I could get without a tripod (I held my breath a lot).



And this is a cropped view of the same shot. It's not pretty, I know, but it (not-so-clearly) shows Jupiter with two moons on the right and one on the far left. I think I saw three moons on the right through my binos, but I can't be completely sure because...well...I'm fairly ignorant of astronomy too.



I'm still happy. I saw Jupiter...and it's moons....more than I've ever seen before.

And there's fresh snow on the ground!

Life is good.

Wet

Even today, a glorious, blue-sky morning bursting with sunshine and windswept clouds tinged pink and gold, the first morning in over a month possessing the faintest hint of fall, even today the air is thick and heavy and wet.



It is yet another in a long string of days laden with the bane of my existence, one hundred percent humidity. As I walk to school each morning, I feel the oppressive weight of it as I breathe in and out. It clings to my skin and clothes and every other available surface. I won’t even mention what a snarling tangle it makes of my hair.





There should be frost on the berries, but instead they’re just wet, wet, wet. Everything is wet and dripping and has been for weeks. September usually brings our first substantial snowfall. Sometimes it melts away, but more often it remains, white powder piled up on fresh sheaths of ice skinning the surfaces of ponds and lakes and eventually the river...just the way I like it.



I know this isn’t much to complain about while Southern regions are still scorching (and plenty humid as well), but…this just isn’t right. It’s not the Arctic autumn that I know and love.

Students have been asking, “Man, when’s it ever gonna get cold?”

I shrug sympathetically and admit that I’m wondering the same thing. I remind them that break-up came late this year, that the river ice didn’t go out until the middle of June and most of the summer was cloudy and cold. August brought lots of rain ensuring muddy boots and juicy berries. The seasons seem to have shifted a bit, abandoning the predictable timing of things that some of us so obviously crave.



September’s chill usually brings dryness. Humidity, trapped as frost or snow, crunches underfoot and leaves the air so fresh and crisp that it seems to snap. It’s something I look forward to—a lot. This year is just different. For now, first frost is still an elusive prospect as we wade through day after day of thick humid air...



...and more wet.

Buoyed by Breeze

It's already the last day of July!

How can that be?

Where did all the sand at the top of my vacation hour glass go?

Somehow spring slipped into summer, yet the transition never made it to my blog. I've got some serious catching up to do! And today I'll take the first step.

The first half of July was relatively cool with average temps in the forties...my kind of weather! But over the last couple of weeks, the Buggy Side has seriously lived up to its name.

It's been buggy and muggy and way too warm with nary a breeze to rustle even the most delicate sliver of grass. That lack of wind is significant because, without a stirring of at least 10 mph, mosquitoes become relentless. I have reluctantly been spending a lot of my time indoors.

But today wild winds from the West have energized the village!

Children are running around like parka squirrels, happy to be bug-free and cool. People are smiling as they scurry here and there on foot or four wheeler. The lake water is choppy with white caps breaking toward the shore. Little fluffs of arctic cotton float on the air, building up here and there, like summertime drifts of snow.

I walked into the post office earlier today, happy to be out, even ecstatic to be swayed by 36 mph gusts. The first thing the clerk said to me was, "Thank goodness we finally got some wind!"

At least for today, there is a lightness afoot, a reprieve, a respite from the sticky, sweaty, suffocating stillness of the last two wearing weeks.

Of course, that crazy wind is kicking up sand which stings the skin, irritates the eyes, and fills the nose and mouth with an unpleasant grit.

But, for today, I'm completely satisfied with the trade.

Cold War

The transition from autumn to winter is a gradual, practically graceful, thing. Like two old friends on a quiet walk, no matter how much fun they have conversing, the time for parting ways inevitably comes. Winter winds up. Autumn falls silently away. The seasonal shift is gentle, barely noticeable.

But...the springtime changing of the guard tends to be characterized by a very different tone. Unwilling to relinquish control, Winter’s grip is strong, but Spring is youthful and wages a ferocious battle of its own.

With snarling teeth, it devours Winter's hold bite after bite...





...while the Sun aides the arrogant upstart with pounding rays both day and night.



Still, Winter’s allies, Wind and Cold, keep the old one in the fight.



But in the end, things never change....

Winter's loss is Spring's delight.

What can you do with a sled @ +32?

Babies On Board

I flew to Barrow last week.

It was just for the day…out on the morning flight…back in the afternoon.

I said good-bye to a friend and hello to some much-needed groceries. It was a short trip, but a great day. Chinese food for lunch with a much-loved friend and a full fridge when I get home…how much better can it get?

While waiting for the flight back to Atqasuk, I was steadily entertained by the antics of two toddlers soon to be passengers on the same flight.





Bush planes provide passenger and freight transport, but not much else. There are no attendants distributing magazines or snacks; there is no in-flight movie to pass the time.

But…there is always the window.



And sometimes passengers put on a show without even trying.



I lucked out, having babies on board, because the passenger strapped in next to me was rather short on conversation.

Snow Bath of a Different Kind

So...

I'd just finished observing the snow bunting giving itself a snow bath (previous post). I walked through the school to the front deck. It was a glorious day and the front deck of the school offers a great eastern view of the tundra. There are caribou out there...if only I had the lens to prove it!

Anyway, as I stood there, camera in hand, breathing in the fresh, frosty air I heard the slow scraping sound of a sled on the icy road below. Sure enough, a sweet pair come into view. A devoted young mommy and her extremely curious three-year-old son are enjoying a peaceful stroll in the bright spring sunshine.

It made me sigh inside to witness such a wholly unspoiled scene painted upon a canvas of pure white, simple and clean.



Then...

BAM!

Teenagers tumble into view.

And a snow bath...of a different kind...ensues!



Pounce...



Bounce...



Denounce...



Flounce!

No preening or cleaning with this snow bath, but there were plenty of ruffled feathers!

And you'll notice the little guy observed it all...significantly out of reach.

Me too.