"I am never more myself than when I'm alone in my surroundings."

This giant sandbox, dubbed the smallest desert in the world, is impossible for me to get lost in. I hug the warm silky sand between my toes as we walk, the light from almost 25 hour sun enveloping my back. As I walk out into the middle of nothing. One can be alone, anywhere.

Searching for Meaning

Coming back from a trip to Atlin, BC, where my 12 year-old, Brace, was having a camping trip with his grade 6 class. I pulled into the lake, just before the turn off onto the Carcross road (in the Yukon).

I was amazed!! I don't know why eagles keep crossing my path and I'm not complaining about it. But there, sitting on a stone was this Golden Eagle. I got up to 20 feet from it before he started flying away (as seen here).

He must have been at least 3 feet tall with a 12 foot + wing spam... he truly was magnificent!

Lost in Transit

When you live in the Yukon everywhere else in the world is "outside." And when you go outside sometimes things seem weird.

Like when we went to Toronto. I loved the architecture, the old buildings, the stone work and the carved wooden doors. I have a thing about doorways.

I saw this sign from the window of the Greyhound bus on our way to our friends wedding.

If this sign is to be believed, people are not allowed to stand to the left of this sign. Nor are they to stop there between 4 and 6 PM from Monday to Friday.... huh??? I'm confused.

In the Yukon things are simple. Like at the end of main street. "Tour bus parking only. April  - October," "Two hour parking," makes sense.

I know that each community has it's differences and quirks which make it unique. It's what sets us all apart. And so it is my hope that someday someone in Toronto will enlighten me at some point as to the meaning of this sign.

Yesterday, trains ran these rails from Whitehorse, YT to Skagway, AK. Today, a trolley rides backwards and forwards carrying tourists and locals from one end of town to the other along the Yukon River front. Tomorrow... the great unknown looms. Ever present, ever real and ever changing.

Tracks of where I've been stretch on into the unwritten future of hopes, dreams and unspoken thoughts yet to be, where nothing is ever certain and anything can happen. It must be enough to know who I am and trust that where I've been will carry me through, in time.

Brittle rock faces full of fissures stand amid mountain slopes. Run off trickling through tunnels, running over faces, tripping and dancing over the rough surfaces as the mountain goat, on it's way to the valleys below.

Mini-waterfalls singing through the valley, voices every louder and rushing as they join the rivers and lakes on their way to the sea. A mass of water moving as herds of deer and caribou, followed by the green of spring, the rainbow of summer flowers and the painted colours of autumn rust.

In some places the hill themselves are weeping from the winters weight, a welcome to the warmth of summer and the plenty of fall fruit before the long nights sleep.

The Yukon. Rich in history and colour. The past behind glass as the present rushes by. I wonder what it would think were our positions reversed. We must seem a wild lot content to lolligag around doing things strangely counter productive and backwards. Disconnected by the technology we serve.