Bring It On

How do we wile away the winter hours when we no longer imagine ourselves an Olympic downhill skier, leaning forward, our poles tucked into our side as we assume the most aerodynamic position available to us? Many an eminent creative mind tells us winter is a time of restoration.

When I was in Dawson City as writer-in-residence for four months in 2017, I met a doctor, Suzanne Crocker, who hung up her stethoscope and picked up a movie camera to create documentary films. Her first film, “All the time in the World,” released in 2014, documented her family’s nine-month adventure in the Yukon wilderness spanning the winter months. It was a rare and fascinating time for them, and though laced with hardship and challenges, the lessons learned from the experience far outweighed the struggle. What she noted was, without the benefit of artificial light, the body’s willingness to rest, to sleep unencumbered for many more hours than what we would deem “normal” and… it got me thinking.

It is a snow day here, buses aren’t running, children are at home. Not a flake of snow has fallen yet but I trust those making such decisions are erring on the side of caution. We’re quick to criticize and complain and I know for many it creates significant problems in getting to work, especially those for whom there is no pay on such days. I have the privilege of not having to be anywhere and most of my career I worked from home and a snow day meant my daughters and I got to hunker down and watch movies from under heavy blankets or play games or read or… A snow day was a gift, Mother Nature telling us to slow down and live in this moment, this precious moment.

A snowstorm in the forecast when we were kids had us rubbing our hands together, excited to challenge the snow’s depth. It was glorious. In 1965, my family went to the Royal Theatre to see “That Darn Cat,” a special occasion for sure. By the time the film was over, the weather had turned and driving home along the river road was harrowing. Our car bucked snow drift after snow drift and when we finally turned off the highway onto our road, the car wasn’t going to take us any further. It was late in the season for a storm of that severity, but we were reasonably prepared for the long dark walk down Wilson Road to our house. We were excited and felt we were on an extraordinary adventure of survival, for at least most of the trek. I do recall my dad having to urge my tired legs forward. The snow was heavy with moisture and the temperature dropped overnight. The wind howled, whipping the snow into firm shapes and obstacles. In the morning, my father backed the tractor out of the shed and the snowdrift supported the tractor’s heavy weight. Such snow was perfect for building an igloo, and what an igloo we built.

I try to channel my inner child when winter throws her weight around. The storm that is brewing will create inconveniences, and already has, examples of the results of careless driving. I will pull my curtains closed and crawl under a blanket and wait it out. Hopefully, my power will stay on, and I won’t have to hook up my generator to keep warm and prepare food. I’ll read Robert Frost’s poetry, one of the many poets who wrote extensively about winter. How could he not with a name like Frost? I’ll turn to the poetry of Robert Service, who was lovingly called the “Bard of the Yukon,” his poetry written while he tucked into a wee cabin across the road from Berton House in Dawson City, a cabin that Service found solace in more than a hundred years before I found creative rest in Berton House. He wrote “A Song of Winter Weather” that likened the weather of the Yukon to the hardships of the First World War. But the Yukon got into his blood, and he penned the following poem, having given over to the lure of the North, with the final stanza saying:

“There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;

It’s luring me on as of old;

Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting

So much as just finding the gold.

It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,

It’s the forests where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.”

– Robert Service, The Spell of the Yukon, 1907

Bring on the storm, Mother Nature. Give it your best shot.

wendistewart@live.ca