It has been so exciting here in Reliance the last few days I am having a very hard time forcing myself to sit quietly and write for a bit.
It has been a very cold spring and we are no closer to break-up than we were a month ago it seems. The temperatures are bitter with the wind chill, and the snow is evaporating rather than melting.
A few weeks ago when it was above freezing for a few days, I started the yard work, raking each new area as the ground became exposed. Piles of dead brambles and fireweed and dog poop are all ready to be shoveled into the wheelbarrow and burned or composted. But the last two weeks have gotten so cold again that everything froze hard to the ground and so, yard work is on hold until the next thaw.
Watching the weather maps closely every day, we see a strong blue line of cold running right along the tree line, starting east of Inuvik and going down to around Churchill Manitoba. Reliance is just a few miles away from the tree line of the boreal forest and from that blue line of arctic weather. Stepping on to the deck, the east wind from the Barrens is cold enough to take your breath away. The last two years by the end of May, Charlton Bay was all open water but this year there is still six inches of hard frozen snow on top of the lake ice. We have such a wonderful surplus of dry firewood left from our woodcutting last fall, we can afford to crank up the woodstove to get the house toasty warm, open the front door and windows to let the fresh air flow through the house and pretend it is spring outside.
Through the open windows and door we can hear the constant and loud honking of geese here in the Narrows, which is what has been so exciting! It seems the unseasonably cold weather is holding them back from going up to their breeding grounds in the high arctic and the small channel of open water between our house and Maufelly Point is the best place to wait. They can go without food for periods of time, but fresh drinking water is a necessity to all living creatures. The remaining snow pack has gone rock hard and all the small lakes are still frozen solid. These Canada geese are tough, happily paddling in the cold blue water, sleeping on the ice and enjoying the warm rays of the sun on their back, protected from the -13 C windchill by Fairchild Point.
Last evening as the sun was setting around 10 p.m., we decided to go for a walk along the trail down to the shore where the flat rocks gently slope into the water. Standing in the orange rays on the warm rocks, we were amazed at the thousands of Canada geese, snow geese and speckled belly white fronted geese. And more flocks were coming in from the North and east by the minute. The Narrows was completely full of geese honking and the sound in the deep background was like the hum of an airplane or a trillion bees droning. Suddenly a few hundred Canada geese started to paddle straight towards us, the leader breaking water in a vee shape. It was such an unexpected sudden move by the geese it almost felt aggressive and all sorts of horror film scenarios began to play out in my imagination. I wondered how fast I could run if they all actually tried to kill us for food. But they didn’t. They stopped about 20 feet away, at the edge of the ice shelf and looked at us so directly I wondered if they were expecting us to throw them bird food. The scenario became even stranger as we walked back up to the house, the geese all paddled along, following us. We stood out on the front deck, and several hundred geese floated below, looking up at us, honking their hearts out. It was just bizarre and I took non-stop photos and video to document the spectacular event.
This morning, we awoke to the geese sleeping after an active night. We noticed hundreds more snow geese gathered together on the far ice edge, and just as we were checking them out with binoculars, an eagle swooped down hunting. With a mighty roar of flapping wings and loud honking all the thousands of geese were suddenly in the air and gone, apparently heading North in one massive wave of powerful spring energy pushing away the winter cold, leaving in their wake, absolute silence.
I don’t know if the geese will ever come to Reliance like that again, but if not, there are so many other interesting summer birds. The swans, eagles, gulls and ducks stay here all summer, providing lots of entertainment. Soon the robins will be feasting on grasshoppers and huge Canadian Darner dragonflies will be hunting here too. But today, summer is still far off, the wood stove is still cranked high and I’m still pretending its spring.