Mountains, clouds, and ice guard the entrance of a rich, magical valley
In the Pacific Northwest, we tend to become hunched and dull during winter, when the slate grey days end too soon and the evergreen trees loom monotonously dark green. We board planes flying to sunny places, where light sparkles on snow or tropical oceans. Or we just stay put and get depressed, drink too much coffee, and buy expensive lights for our desks.
Mt. Thor, shedding storm clouds
This verdant weight felt lush and light to me as I drove back from SeaTac airport after returning from Baffin Island without having seen a tree for weeks. There, everything appeared to be ice, dangerously cold water, impassive peaks, jumbled glacial moraines, sand and rocks, rocks and sand.
Where glaciers once ground the rocks to flour sometimes looks lifeless and painful, like dry boredom. Rocks and dirt are washed around by water, tipped by gravity to tumble down moraines, heaved by freeze/thaw.
Look closer and you will see a carpet of plant life spreading over rocks and dirt that finally stop moving: lush, deep carpets of moss and lichen, mushrooms, willows, grasses, and flowers. Along Cumberland Sound, find lemon yellow Arctic sulfur butterflies and deep orange fritillaries by freshwater streams.
Arctic Sulphur Butterfly- Pangnirtung headlands
In the Weasel River Valley, look up to see the warm streaks of iron across the charcoal and ivory surface of a mountain, or the warm wash of sun across the rocks or a wind-sculpted sand dune. Find the iridescent sheen of bacteria thriving on iron and manganese rich water in puddles. Delight in the abstract pattern of charcoal silt in a shallow stream. Admire the faint gold of August evening light on the river braids.
Around Crater Lake, pause to pick up rocks. You will find crystals of every kind, shimmering finishes, all colors. These are rocks laid down by ancient lakes or thrown skyward by volcanoes, then heated under pressure to become gneiss, schist, quartzite, and slate.
The Pacific Northwest might wrap you in a soft cushion of greenery, so dense and comfortable that Midwest flatlanders like me never leave. The seeming barren lands of the Arctic tundra drive you to action, to seek beauty, drawing you onward with occasional flashes of beauty and brilliance. Every day, once we set camp, I roamed looking for color and light. When the pickup boat sped away down Pangnirtung Fiord, we looked back quietly at the grey fortress of mountains looming over the Weasel River Valley. Ruth said it was sad to leave the mystical valley, that she would miss just walking, eating, and sleeping, living a simple life in a beautiful place. I silently agreed as I imagined behind that curtain of rain flashes of red and gold, orange and pink, yellow and jet black.
Silver Snag Studio 