Author Archives: Jane Cawthorne

About Jane Cawthorne

Jane is a writer currently living in Victoria BC. She grew up in Toronto and also spent many years in Calgary where, among other things, she taught Women's Studies at Mount Royal College (now Mount Royal University). Her work is about women on the brink of transformation.

The Arctic Ocean

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We’ve gone as far as we can go this trip. We made it to Tuktoyaktuk and the Arctic Ocean.

Arctic Ocean

What is it like? Overwhelming. Stark. Cold. Odd. There are landforms called pingos that dot the tundra. They come and go, the result of changes in permafrost. I lost my sense of scale. Is that landmark a kilometer away or twenty? I could not tell. As for Tuktoyaktuk, it is beautiful and probably doomed says our Inuit guide, despite the millions spent on a breakwater.

Our guide assures us that place is not what matters in Tuk. It’s the people. The people are Tuk. If Tuk moved inland, it would still be Tuk.

The people are trying to heal from colonialism. There is trauma. It is evident. A stop the day before at Reindeer Station on the MacKenzie River was a little different than it might have been because community members were there doing the work to heal trauma. We stayed out of their way.

Would the $150 million spent on a doomed breakwater have been better spent on healing the people? I have no doubt it would have. Physical infrastructure is easier. The political class can put signs up. No one can put a sign on a person’s soul to announce their investment in it.

We met a traveling nurse in Inuvik who will likely spend the rest of her career going from community to community in the north. People like her care for the physical body. More doctors and nurses are needed—and veterinarians too. Physical bodies matter.

So do hearts and minds.

Our guides and hosts were kind, generous with their stories, and unfailingly good to us Southerners. I learned so much fro them. I am changed by them. I thank them all.

Now, the long journey south begins.

Tundra

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We made it to the tundra. We drove into Tombstone and went through the transition and passed the tree line and then it was tundra. Amazing.

We stopped at Two Moose Lake. Our daughter decided to pull out the ultralight camp
stove and make coffee for everyone. The Tundra Barista. It was a little magical. We saw no moose, but we were there, feeling the strange slanted light, overlooking a lovely lake that no doubt attracts many moose, and just BEING there.

The world gets increasingly elemental here, that is, boiled down to its elements. And life wants to thrive. I think that’s what I find most inspiring about the north—how plants always find the nook or cranny to grow in. How the rose hips give a little pop of colour or the fireweed, even when it is spent.

I feel like that.

The kids left this morning. We had such a good time. An epic family trip for the ages. I’m so grateful I’m alive to do it. Rob and I still have two or three weeks before we are home. It will be great, but it won’t be the same without them.

Two Moose Lake in Tombstone

Barista Kate, Moose Lake

Tundra

The North is the Future

Kluane Magic

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Kluane National Park is magical. The light is stark, slant, and ever-changing. The lakes are glacial, blue and more blue and green with refracted glacial silt, and unbelievably cold to jump in.

In the old days, I would have gone on day long monster hikes. Now I go on a few shortish hikes here and there, happy when my heart and one-and-a-half lungs can get me places.

I’m amazed that I’m alive, I’m here, and I’m doing these things. I’m grateful to be here with my family, the in laws and the outlaws.

Pictures are worth a thousand words. Here are a few.

A Hyphen Moment

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Climate news around the world is hard to bear. The fires are making their own weather now. Closer to home, parts of the city of Spokane are on fire. Meanwhile, we are in the Yukon. I feel like we are in a dream.

The Yukon River is high this year, the result of a cold winter and big snowpack. Out fishing the other day, it was hard to find the main channel within all the shallow water. We saw eagles and beaver. We fished into the long twilight.

There is no normal, not really, but there is a scale of easy to difficult to impossible. We are on the easy end of the scale now while much of the rest of the world is in the difficult to impossible.

This time is a gift. The kids (all grown ups, to be clear) arrived yesterday. We are all together, camping by a glorious creek, delighted by the antics of squirrels and other forest creatures. The air is crisp, cool, and clean. The twilight lasts for hours. Nights are luxuriously cold.

And my awareness of this time as interstitial is constant. I’m the only one awake right now. I have noted more than once in my writing about how we humans are rarely aware of when something is happening for the last time. Life changes in the instant. I know this as well as anyone. I don’t know if this is the last time we will experience our lives like this, but I’m going to appreciate it like it is. We are living what I call a “hyphen” moment. We are in between. I’m grateful. Here’s a photo of twilight on the Yukon River.

Personal Hygiene in the Wilderness

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Do I dare broach the topic of personal hygiene in the wilderness? I think I will.

Showers are few and far between these days. What this means is a small basin of tepid water, a washcloth, and “top and tail” as my mother-in-law says. Basically a sponge bath.

How much exposure you’re willing to have depends on many factors, privacy being the most obvious. But there are also the mosquitos to consider. You want to be quick if you’re outside. I’m lucky to have the tiny trailer.

Why not jump in a lake? Or a river? Well, that’s always possible. But, again, the privacy situation has to be right if you want to skinny dip and the water here is very cold.

And what if you’re menstruating? I don’t have to worry about that any more, thank the Goddess. But I was once on this five day hike through the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy when my period started. In those days, I used a Diva cup. With all the animals around it was important to dig a deep enough hole to bury the blood. It is a total hassle and I had to use some of my very precious water to rinse the cup. Did I have to? I FELT like I did. So yes. Anyway. Menstruation kicks everything up a notch when it comes to hygiene in the wilderness.

So called “beauty” routines are gone. I realized today I hadn’t moisturized in more than a week. I mostly remember sun screen.

Today was the day I looked down at my cracked fingertips and rough fingernails and sighed. I found a little salve in my bag. That helped.

I go nowhere without my pocket-sized hand sanitizer.

Flossing is taking a beating, but I always brush my teeth.

But all of this is temporary for me and freely chosen. I think about how people displaced by war and disaster feel. The simple luxury of being clean is easily taken for granted and easily lost.

Lastly, the toughest thing is hair, and I don’t even have much hair to worry about. Hair gets bad pretty fast between the sweaty hikes and bug spray and sleep bumps. Bandanas and hats help. But I’ve got two words for anyone who is going to be unable to wash hair for a while: dry shampoo. It works. I used to use it in the hospital too. Over a few days it builds up and you can kind of sculpt your hair into place. If I’ve got big, good hair in the wilderness, you know it’s the dry shampoo.

As for clothes, there’s a lot of sniffing and shrugging these days. I shake clothes out. Good enough. Campfires are wonderful but the smell sure lasts. Maybe that’s a good thing.

My friend Val calls this gradual drift away from one’s usual standards of cleanliness “getting bushed.” Hard as it is to get used to, if I’m out for long enough, I always find getting un-bushed the hardest part of returning to my regular life.

Yukon River