I’ve had a lot of “firsts” this year, including a very “Canadian” experience here. Spending winter in the Yukon was the big one. There is so much more to that sentence that it can be broken down into many other “firsts”. I grew up in London, England, so I’m quite used to the cold.
I’ve experienced being frozen down to my bones in the damp weather that permeates winter there. When it snowed it was just miserable in the city. Grey slush lined the streets, travelling to work was difficult, and the city would come to a standstill. When you did have time to enjoy it, it wasn’t long before you were soaked through and wishing you were toasty warm at home, a cup of tea warming up your frozen fingers.
Whenever I would talk with Dane about winter, he would assure me that winter in the Yukon was different.
“How could anyone possibly live at -40 degrees?” I would stammer, shivering at the thought.
“But it’s a dry cold!” He would exclaim. “It’s totally different, trust me.”
I didn’t believe him at first, but I still wanted to experience it. Minus 40 degrees Celsius? Sounds terrible. How wrong I was!
My experience of winter in the Yukon
Winter in the Yukon is indescribably beautiful. I spent it living and working in a remote community called Beaver Creek. Sitting next to the Alaskan border, it’s the most westerly community in Canada. It would take five hours to drive to Whitehorse to get groceries.
The first thing I noticed was that it was peaceful. Pristine white snow covered everything and muted sound. I would stand and look around me, and hear hardly anything. The snow would fall lazily around me, and over time I would see the snow banks rise higher and higher. Like living things, they grew. Winds would shape the curvature of it. The top of the untouched snow would look like sand on the sea bed rippled and changing.
Animal tracks would be easy to spot at first but would disappear with the next snowfall. I would walk home at night with my torch and whistle a tune, stomping my feet to make noise. Just in case… As a city girl, I was definitely not used to having to be aware of wild animals like moose!
Darkness in the Yukon
At dusk, the silence would creep in around me with the darkness. Some nights the slumbering rumbles of the truck engines would comfort me, adding some noise to the hush. As someone who is used to sounds throughout the night, from voices to sirens, sometimes it was a welcome noise. It’s also so…dark. The night sky seems to bear down on you, the constellations mapped out overhead.
In London, I was lucky to see a few stars at night. Now Orion was my companion every night as I walked home. Ursa Major would hover above my home, the only bear I would see this winter whilst the others hibernated. Jupiter and Saturn were regularly visible too.
As winter moved on, we lost six minutes of sunlight each day. That’s a massive amount. When the winter equinox arrived, there was only 4 hours of sunlight. The sun lazily peaked above the mountains around midday, strolled just atop them, and then dipped back down. Short and sweet. I relied upon my mood lamp and vitamin D tablets to keep my energy levels up throughout winter. I was lucky that there was hardly any cloud cover that day, just a little fog. Not normal fog, oh no… ice fog.
Extreme cold in the Yukon
When temperatures started to reach down to -40, the moisture in the air would freeze. It’s suspended there, creating a fog. It’s beautifully eerie, and it boggled my mind the first time I saw it. A hazy wall of ice, cutting you off from the rest of the world. Cars and trucks would slowly emerge through it, drive past me, and then get swallowed up again on the other side. Snow no longer falls as it’s too cold.
That’s also a good time to try the water challenge – throw hot water into the air and watch it instantly freeze! It rains down on you like powder. Just be careful not to burn yourself, of course. This is about the time that propane also starts to freeze, and furnaces like to break.
That’s another thing – cold burns, just like heat. Don’t touch metal with your bare hands. Your skin will stick to it, and it feels like you’re ripping the skin off as you pull away.
At minus 50 and below, the adventure starts to morph into something more extreme. I take a step outside, take a breath, and – cough. Repeatedly. I can feel the cold air entering and freezing up my lungs. My bare skin stings from the cold exposure. Moisture on my eyelashes freeze into globules of ice and stick together when I blink. Spending long amounts of time outside now is dangerous. You won’t see any of the locals out for a casual stroll in this temperature.
Like a winter wonderland
But there is so much to enjoy in the winter! Dane was right about the cold – it’s dry. I layered up, wore a good coat, and covered my skin. The cold seemed to stop at my clothes. It didn’t penetrate. I would feel warm as I hiked outside, despite the freezing temperatures. The locals gave me tips on how to feel comfortable, and what not to do. Maybe that should be an article for another time.
During sunlight hours, the snow glitters and sparkles. It’s so bright I have to wear sunglasses, especially when the sun is shining. Snow in the wild looks so clean and pure. It’s bright and so, so white. No trace of the grey slush I’m used to. Fresh snowfall sprinkles the pine trees to make it look like a scene in a snow globe.
My “firsts”
I shoveled snow for the first time. What a workout… If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to leave my house or get to work! We had to carve a trail through the snow. If we started to neglect it, we would sometimes try to trample it down with our feet. Getting wet clothes up to my thighs is never pleasant though! It’s damn hard work to walk through the snow.
I made my first proper snow angel this winter. There was enough snow that I could fall backward without hurting myself. Everyone else was used to winter, and I seemed to be the only one excited to play in the snow. How they had the restraint to walk past an untouched, smooth section of snow I’ll never know. It just begs to be walked through!
The northern lights
The northern lights have always been on my bucket list, and this winter I got to tick them off. The first time I ever saw them I thought it was a grey cloud. But clouds don’t look that smooth, or elegantly shift in a spectral dance. How my heart skipped a beat when I took a picture, and there the green showed up before my eyes!
The best show I saw to date was a month later, during a solar storm. Leaving the house wasn’t necessary. I stood on the porch as I watched the glowing green tendrils mesmerisingly dancing across the night sky.
I also decided that now would be a great time to learn how to drive. In winter… with snow and ice and fog. Maybe not the smartest decision I ever made. But that remains to be seen! Learning to drive in this season has given me skills that people in London never learn.
During winter in the Yukon, the frost heaves are filled up with snow and evened out… I imagine driving in summer and seeing the bumpy frost heaves in all their glory will be another experience entirely!
Winter this season has been a long one. Seven months of Winter at the time of writing this. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for the next three seasons. Even now, I can start to feel the warmth of the sun when it shines on my face. Warmth is returning, and with it the changing of the season. Here’s to more firsts for the next one.
[…] I had just finished work and gleefully picked a pair of skates, optimistic with my mind full of the image of me skating on to the pitch and doing an activity like a local. It had been years since I’d attempted skating… I pushed that uncomfortable memory to the back of my consciousness as I walked down through the snow to the frozen lake. Skates swinging in one hand, the other hand wrapped around my fiancé, I thought “this is so Canadian!” And this was even after spending my first winter in the Yukon, which I write about here. […]
What a fantastic experience you are having love take care xxx
Thankyou, I’ll keep this updated as much as I can xx
Well done. What a great read. Thank you.
Thankyou for taking the time to read my adventures!
[…] So, are you ready to sleep during summer in the Yukon? You now have the tools for a great nights sleep, ready to wake up feeling refreshed. You’re ready to make the most out of your summer! The summer sun won’t start to get back to manageable hours until September. That’s plenty of time to perfect your sleep routine. Next you will have to figure out your winter routine, and I’ll have some tips for you then too. In the meantime you can read my story on my first winter in the Yukon. […]