Autobiography in Five Short Chapters.

by Portia Nelson

I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

This poem was framed in five little frames and hung on the wall of a house that I stayed at in Whitehorse.

I was going to say, "Go Habs!", but now it's more like, "Montreal, pull it together!"

Tonight I'm at the KPI watching the game with the locals. Unfortunately, Montreal is about to lose 5-1. This is not good.

Here is the last bit of my Whitehorse trip.

As you know, I made it to the Wade Davis presentation. It was excellent. He is the Explorer In-residence for National Geographic and the slide show was amazing. Just a series of National Geographic quality shots. The talk was a condensed version of his newest book, the Wayfinders. I bought a copy and he signed it for me.


The next day I went to the Beringia Interpretive Centre with two of the girls I met at the hostel. It is a really well done museum all about the Ice Age in this area. The displays are all very simple and quite beautiful, really. They have all sorts of these giant quotes from local elders talking about their stories. This quote refers to the story about finding the first ancient mammal preserved under the ice.


These little guys were my favourite Ice Age mammal. They are related to antelope and have giant nose sacs to warm the air before it enters their bodies and capture moisture as the air leaves their bodies. These guys actually still exist, in Siberia, I think, but the last two groups are endangered.


This is a fossil of a giant land sloth. There were herbivores. And huge.


I really liked them too, so I took a couple pictures. I started reading Life of Pi the other day and the story starts by explaining a lot of sloth behaviour and it's really interesting.


And, of course, the woolly mammoth.


The Centre also has an ancient horse hide that was conserved at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa. Some of you may already know about this. I couldn't take pictures as it is light sensitive.

The week after I leave there will be a display about the local clothing and dolls. These mukluks were a little display to promote that upcoming event. I would have liked to see that.


This morning one of the girls and I walked all around a part of the Yukon River. It runs right through Whitehorse. The ice is just breaking up and it was a really nice hike with a lot of things to look at.


This boat, the S.S. Klondike, is a local historical site. It's not open right now, of course, but it just received a fresh paint job and looks very nice. The German girl told me that the same boat is also in Dawson City and only half of this boat is the actual boat and the rest is restored. The other half is in Dawson, restored to the same state.


The giant orange paddle wheel.


And we found this along the walk. I'm wearing my Manitoulin Sweater, now known as my Town Sweater, since I only wear it when we go into town on Fridays.



This is the Whitehorse Utilities building. It's nice because it's so blue.


They also make their power with this dam and turbines.


I'm about to head back to Squirrel Camp. Short week, only three days till I'm back in town. Wish me luck, Cass

Woah.

Can someone please buy this for me, please?

It's a pencil crayon subscription. Each month for 20 months this company will send you 25 colours. By the end of that 25 months you will have collected 500 different coloured pencil crayons and spent a tonne of cash. And you will be able to colour absolutely anything in the perfect shade.

And you will be really happy because they all have names like these:

I'm off to do something in Whitehorse that doesn't involve my computer and the free internet.

More soon, Cass

Life's too short to knit boring work socks.

Haven't really done much knitting up here, but wanted to show this off:


This is a sock made from the blue wool I purchased when I was last in Ottawa. I found an ancient knitting book and was inspired to design this chevron sock at Squirrel Camp. Number one is finished except for the kitchener stitch at the toe, and two is already casted on.

I spent some time today looking for my northern souvenir. I was really hoping to take some mukluks home, but the price for local handcrafts is prohibitive on a Squirreler's wage. Also, I think I would enjoy making myself some one day.

So instead I went to the local knitting store and bought some new sock wool. Turns out I'm turning into a sock knitter. These were all in the 25% off bin....even that Noro. I've been wanting to buy that colourway for years now (literally, since they first brought it to Canada), but I just wasn't a sock knitter before. Now that I am, I snatched it up at sale price.


I also picked up these handcarved buttons. I'm a sucker for handcarved buttons. These are made of, from top to bottom, deer, moose, and caribou antlers.


Over all, it was a very good day for wool. I'm going back to the store on Monday because the owner wants to see my Hiya Hiya interchangeable needles. I also want to take some pictures of her store because it is truly lovely. She also carries the elusive muskox fibre, quiviuk. Unfortunately, it is extremely labour-intensive to collect this rare fibre. The women in the collective that supply her store follow the muskox herd around and pick up the little bits of their underbelly coat that falls off. Then they have to sort out all of the grass, lichen, and guard hairs by hand. This is the warmest and lightest animal fibre anywhere. It costs $80 for 25g. I could not even justify that as a souvenir. They make these kits with one of the neatest mitten patterns I have ever seen. It has a muskox graphic on the back of a very straight mitten with classic Norwegian shaping. I tried one on and that was dangerous. The kit cost $210.00. They were by far the nicest mittens I have ever put on, but there was no way I could buy the kit. She did a really good job at trying to talk me into it, however. I resisted. It was tough. I'm pretty sure she actually wants me to come back on Monday so she can try to sell it to me again. I'm not going to buy it. Really, I'm not. I promise everyone in blogland that I will not buy that kit. I'll just have to come back to the Yukon someday when I'm a rich and famous ecologist and buy it then.

Yukon Fireweed.

two summers past
the fierce Minto fire
rolls over to show its pink belly

kjmunro

Whitehorse town.

Today I got to meet the Stanley Cup at the Scotiabank in Whitehorse. I was one of the first 500 people in line, so they took a professional picture of me with it and will e-mail it to me in a few days. I also met a really nice family in line and they took another picture of me with The Cup in the background. They were rushing everyone through so much and the line wasn't even that long. I think they expected the event to be busier than it actually was.


After that I just strolled around town and ran some errands. As we rarely come into the city, some of my coworkers wanted me to pick up special items for them. I also had a list of touristy things to see. I’ve been taking pictures of downtown Whitehorse architecture. It’s an interesting place because there are a lot of historical cabins and false-front buildings right in the middle of the city. They are all very well maintained and painted in really nice colours. I particularly enjoy this blue one and the purple log cabin below.



This little building's claim to fame is that it is the oldest operating building in the Yukon. It's the Klondike BBQ serving northern BBQ cuisine. I think it would be a great place to eat, but it isn't open right now. Hence, it is no longer the oldest operating building. There is something going on with its completely dug-up front lawn, so I'm guessing that it's under renovation.


Right next door to the Klondike is the Cupcakery. It's pretty cute and fabulous. I ordered these little guys for a treat. The front one is a blackforest cupcake with a cherry on top and the one in the back is a lemon cupcake with lemon curd centre and a blueberry and lemon zest on top. Yum.


There’s also this giant piece of copper. The sign says it is most likely the largest piece ever found in Canada. It took them 10 days to retrieve this piece and haul it back into town over two mountain passes, the Yukon River, and countless other dangerous obstacles. But, now they have a nice possibly-record setting Big Thing for one of their corners. This is right out front of the Yukon Museum, which is also not currently in operation. These people keep strict winter hours until May. Then the town really starts to open up. I'll have a couple days to see the things I couldn't see when I come back to head down south.


After my walk downtown I drove up the hill to the Canada Games Centre to the Environmental Fair. It was really neat and I talked to so many interesting people. Everyone wants me to come live here and work. I collected a lot of business cards. I want to work in Ontario, though. I suppose that's the problem for most people. While I was at the Fair, I ran into a woman I had met the previous night at the hostel. She works for the local Native Council and I mentioned that I couldn't get a ticket to the Wade Davis talk tonight because they were all booked up. She showed me the ticket booth for people picking up tickets. They had started a waiting list. They hadn't mentioned that to me the day before when I called, and for some reason they didn't want to add me today, but I was persistent. I had to come back at 2:00 pm to see if I could have a ticket. I came back at 2:00 pm and even though I was the second last person they had allowed on the list, I got one of the tickets! I'm really excited to go to the talk. One of the other girls at the hostel here is going with me. She is currently staying at the hostel and writing her Masters about people's connections to their places and land. And she knits. We have a lot in common, so it should be a fun night!


Tomorrow I'm going out to the Beringia Interpretive Centre and the local hot springs with one of the other women who is staying here. This has been a great day off so far!

Whitehorse roadtrip!

Earlier today I arrived in the lovely, sunshine-y, people-filled, cultural centre of the Yukon. I'm sort of excited to talk to people who don't talk about squirrels and to take in all the things that go along with city-living.

There is a lot going on here this weekend. Tomorrow, the Yukon Environmental Fair is on at the Canada Games Centre. Actually, there will be a Red Squirrels and Climate Change talk in the morning. I might skip that.... The Rotary Music Festival is on at various venues around town. AND, tomorrow the Stanley Cup is visiting Whitehorse! It's stopping in 15 cities across the country on it's playoff tour. It'll be at Scotiabank. I need to go to the bank this weekend, so I might as well stop in while The Cup is there too.

I have a good old fashioned squirrel update for you, but I'm on the free internet computer at the hostel (which is very nice and small and all of the people staying here are very pleasant). So I will post that later on when I'm using my own computer. I'm sure I'll have lots of interesting things to post about before I head back to camp.

I'm off to see the downtown and maybe catch a movie at the tiny Whitehorse Cinema this evening. I'll have to see what's playing. I have the truck and it's daylight till late at night, so it'll be easy to find my way around town.

More soon, Cass