Fall

It's Fall in Yellowknife. A time of transition.

Autumn has been my favourite season just about everywhere I’ve lived, and the North seems to be no exception. The leaves in the birch-dominated forests have changed a million glowing shades of yellow. Brilliant sunsets are a warm-up show for the early-season green aurora, and after-dinner walks are crisp affairs.

That having been said, the narrative that takes us from summer to winter is not strictly linear. A few days ago I put shorts on for an afternoon hike – more of a scramble along the Canadian shield than an even-keeled stroll through the forest – and the morning’s frosts are often forgotten in the warm afternoons. People are still making weekend trips to their cabins on summer terms, the canoeing is prime right about now, and even the geeky kids aren't wearing their snowsuits to school just yet.

The seasonal transition is most apparent for me in the mornings. Ice coats the car as I walk out the driveway at the start of the day, and we have already had a few morning dustings of snow (though our proximity to the lake means that we are just a few degrees warmer than the rest of town, and have yet to see any accumulation). There is often a layer of dew on the beard as I leave any seasonal awareness behind and check the day’s first e-mails under artificial light.

I am grateful for the walk to work. At fifteen minutes it is hardly a workout, but the cool air in my lungs gets the heart pumping and gives me a caffeine-like jolt. I head up the hill on Franklin Avenue, leaving behind the shacks of my Old Town neighbourhood as I approach the tall office buildings of the city center in a daily transition ritual of my own. I start the day in brief concert with the elements, even if I spend most of it in isolation from them.

A layer of fog hung over town one morning last week, mingling with the sunshine to make for a dream-like blur of muted colours as hazy figures shuffled along the avenue. It was like walking towards a dream sequence, or into a faded sepia photograph. Funny, I thought, that I am walking away from Old Town and towards the decidedly more modernized city centre, yet the morning mist is making for a back-in-time trajectory. Perhaps there's a metaphor in there about the development and future of Yellowknife, but I haven't been around long enough say.

Winter will be here soon. We are getting noticeably fewer hours of sunlight with each passing day as the darkness gradually uncoils. Stiff breezes are knocking the leaves loose. As one such wind caught me the other day, a friend who grew up locally looked at me and took on an uncharacteristically cautionary tone. "Do you feel that?" he asked. "It's coming."

The impending season will be long, dark and cold. Inspiring on its own terms, but harsh nonetheless. As a calm before the storm, though, it would be hard to do much better than Fall in Yellowknife.

Friday Night Lights

The burning torch on Dog Island would let us know the show was
on.

Having to look for a beacon in the twilight may have given the
event a speak-easy vibe, but it was as necessary as it was romantic.
Paddling out into the middle of Great Slave Lake is a bit of an
undertaking, so it was imperative that we know the event was a go
before pushing  off. By the time we had carried our borrowed
canoe down our dirt road, through the squatter's shacks at the
lake's edge and dipped it into the cold September water, a crowd
had already formed around the island and the torch was indeed
burning.  The Dog  Island Floating Film Festival was a go.

The lake was glassy and quiet as we set out towards the island, a
modest 10-minute paddle from where we put in.  The sun had
gone down but visibility was not  a problem in the nine o'clock
dusk.  The films had already started as we approached, and when
we were within a few meters I whispered to Sarah that she could
stop paddling. My parallel parking expertise might be hit and
miss, but my dormant canoeing skills from summers on the
Miramichi River came back quickly as I wove our way amidst
the other boats and towards a desirable vantage point.

Dog Island is a one-night festival with an inimitable Northern
aesthetic that makes the films themselves rather secondary. The
movies are projected on a screen set up on the tiny Island (and by
"tiny" I mean the size of a suburban lawn), while locals converge
in canoes, kayaks and silenced motor boats, dropping anchor or
rafting together to take in regional fare from the comfort of their
boats.

After a few minutes of manoeuvring and the realization that we
needed to raft up with others lest I spend the whole night working
to keep us in place, we made our way over to a row of other
canoes and tied on to them.  The neighbour we met at a party the
week before tipped her beer to us as we slid past her boat.  It was
the fourth time - in three different places - that I had seen her that
day.

The films may be secondary to the experience, but that is not to
say they are second-rate films.  The content was mostly local,
and entirely from North of 60 (the line of latitude, that is).  They
all came in under the ten minute mark, and ranged from
contemporary music videos to animated Aboriginal legends to an
art house piece that I don't think I understood.  Or maybe that was
the point.  Anyway, there was a mix of the silly, the serious and the
sublime, but while some of the films took place in the bush, there
wasn't one that could be described as bush league.

I pulled on my toque as dusk gave way to dark. Other  canoes
joined our flotilla, and at one point we were in the midst of a
group nine-wide.  Some people were holding on to other boats,
some were tied to each other, while others were simply wedged
into the middle. We were mostly silent, save for chuckles,
applause and the occasional shout-out to a friend on the screen
when appropriate.

The torch on the island continued to burn.

While some were transfixed on the films, others lay down in their
boats and cast their gazes skyward, as with this being a clear
Yellowknife night in the Fall, there was another show going on.
While the aurora were not at their brightest or most active, the
muted-yet-glowing streak they cut across a black screen of their
own made for an appealing side-show.  Star power, indeed.

There must have been at least sixty boats assembled before all
was said and done, but my counting abilities were hampered by
the darkness.  The lake was just beginning to move in the
midnight breeze and water lapped at the gunwales as we turned
and  headed back to shore, glowing and gliding with the peaceful
headlamp navy headed in all directions. Houseboat dwellers had
the shortest commute.

Rugged exterior notwithstanding, this town is long on culture; we
had to decide which of two gallery openings to attend before the
festival.  That said, things happen here on the town's own terms,
with climate and isolation often factoring in. And so Dog Island
was not Toronto or Cannes, but then again nobody wanted it to be.
This town does red canoes better than it does red carpets, and those
who embrace Yellowknife for what it is seem to reap its finest
rewards.