Goodbye, (sub)Arctic Winter!

April is here, and the Arctic winter is slowly giving in to summer. The sun inches its way higher day after day, and from complete darkness light is taking a stronghold over the region. In the sub-Arctic areas, the increasing length of daylight stands in stark contrast with the temperature (Click here to see it yourself)


So how does it look when the sun is in the sky for almost 16.5 hours while the temperature is 25 below? In these post are photos I took in various places in sub-Arctic areas. At the top, you can see bison struggling to find their first food of the season. Easy to see them, right? Well - try to find the creatures in this picture! (click on any photo to enlarge it)

Life is tough up there. Winter is long, and animals try to hide in relatively protected places. Sometimes, you can look around for miles and not see a living thing! Of-course, If you have the soul of a painter, there is a lot of beauty in this, too.

The truth is that many times while traveling the Arctic in summer, I said to myself that I would very much like to spend a winter there, in a small Intuit village or town. When you hike or kayak in 24 hours of daylight, life beaming around you for the four-week summer, there is actually some curiosity about, and attraction to, seeing the opposite - 24 hours of darkness, freezing cold, vast areas of snow and the struggle of all life to survive yet another winter.

So far, I have not done that. Maybe one day I will. (All my readers need to do is vote for it and I'll be on my way. Maybe.) In the meanwhile, I look longingly at the beauty of life as it begins to "wake up" to the warming sun.

In coming posts, I will begin to focus on the beauty of Arctic summer - Perhaps even entice you to plan a trip! In the meanwhile, read my post Mirror, Mirror on the Arctic Ocean