“I must say that the charm of the Arctic, its infinite diversity, its aloofness from the rest of the world, made it a field which gives its own reward. Only those who have seen the magnificent sunsets over the ice, who have…been buffeted by storms… can appreciate the spell which always draws us back there.”
―
A little further North than where I lived, there is Polar Night from November through January. The snow crunches there. The Northern Lights hum their beautiful hum. They get darker and darker and then lighter and lighter as the North changes cycles. It is hard living up there where the people hunt caribou and wolves. The cold can freeze your eyelashes, your nostrils, your mouth, your lungs, and it is bitter. Yet, the men go out hunting for days and days and there is great feasting when the hunt has been successful.
Further North, closer to the ocean, surviving is desperate and the people make sure they do everything to prepare for those long hard days and nights. They eat a great deal of blubber and seal fat, bear fat, etc., that helps their bodies rev up and help them deal with the constant bone-chilling cold. Further down south, they take a great deal of cod liver oil, eat lots of fish, and maintain their natural thermal to see them through. This was something my mother gave us, when we were little and boy did it taste horrible. Perhaps it is why I no longer enjoy anything fishy.
My heritage is half Norwegian and they love winter. I must be more my maternal family because that is English/Welsh and I do not typically love winter. In Tromso, where my paternal family begins, there are 60 days of Polar Night and 60 days of Polar Days so winter has many activities and summer is enjoyed to its fullest, and most active, and this helps to see it all through.
Where I lived in the North, we got used to the twenty minutes of full darkness in summer and knew the longest days were winter. But the community was active deep into the mornings of summer and in winter, you heard the youth our snowshoeing, tobogganing and there were always fires around which to warm. The beautiful smell of wood heat sometimes weighed heavy in the crisp air of winter. We learned to put tinfoil on our windows the beginning of fall when we first flew in to work so we could sleep with darkness and our windows had heavy curtains, quilts, or whatever we could find to put over the windows to keep out the cold. I remember a few nights where we actually wore coats and hoodies to stay warm at night in our beds. Many had problems with sleep because of the body needing to get used to the sleep patterns of the community. Light was no longer your cue to be sleepy. You learn to be more in tune to your body's needs.
I have fond memories of nature walk-abouts with my students and one of the Teaching Assistant's men providing racks of caribou ribs to be cooked over a wintry bonfire and eaten while sitting on pine boughs. The fresh air and the difficulty of walking in hip-deep snow, wore us all out in such good ways. I know I could not do it today. Some of the people were quite suspicious of darkness but the Northern peoples do not seem to be such as they will be out on the bitterest of days and nights. The community resounded with the sounds of "Aye-E lay" (with rise on the last syllable means "hello, how are you" - thank you Lucy for translating for me. Lucy was one of the Special Needs Assistants I had and who I helped get through University and is now working on her getting her Art Therapy Degree and I am sooo proud of her. She is like family.) being shouted, which I took as a greeting, but then, the youth always taught me the swear words first, and you had to be careful what you repeated because it was a 'gotcha' moment.
One winter we had the most glorious thing to waken to. There had been an ice storm during the night and even though the trees did not grow up higher than us, every tree was covered in ice. The chain link fences were so beautiful. It is beyond the beauty of real hoarfrost. Photos could not even begin to show the beauty. Everyday snow sparkles , truly, like diamonds I have never seen before in snow. Even the moon gives off the most beautiful glow on snow. Then there are the Northern Lights with the ribbons of moving neon colors.. and, again, the hum one can hardly describe. The colors reflect off the snow. Incredible. Lights are halo'd from the ice crystals in the air. Then there were the fires and candles, and those bags you see that you put candles in? In Norway, they put candles out at the doorstep to invite in visitors. The lights of Polar Nights are brighter and memorable.
I experienced winter like I will never experience it again. You cannot begin to describe it all as accurately as one would wish. It is no wonder that the peoples of the North have so many names for snow. We do not have such to compare. So, while I am working towards enjoying winter again, I have that experience to draw from. I am grateful to have experienced it and grateful I do not have to live through it ever again, in many ways. It makes me glad that our winter here is little winter.
For this page, I just turned loose my Muse and away I went with it. The background is full of turquoise and blues and white swirled acrylic. The bottom of the page is beads and sand and glitter added into gesso swirls. I darkened the bottom in order for the beads, etc. to show. I found a cute polar bear photo on mages in Google and used that to draw and paint my bear and penguin and sleigh. The snowflakes under some of the sky show are cut-outs, A really fun page to do.
©Carol Desjarlais 12.5.19
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