These late winter days in Reliance are spent busy puttering about doing chores, odd jobs and the occasional project.
Roger usually has a wolf or wolverine fur he is working on, though there has been a real scarcity of many fur-bearing animals this year. Gus is working on school exams which he takes under the watchful eye of a qualified teacher at the Hoarfrost River Homestead. I am doing a lot of writing these days, but really trying to start in on some unfinished projects, namely my purple dyed sealskin mittens which have sat almost finished for two years. It's time to get that project completed before winter is over again.
This morning, I was sitting drinking some good strong coffee with canned milk and brown sugar, intently reading the news when two loudly squawking ravens broke my absorption. They were dive bombing something with a swift and sudden attack from the sky, feet first, claws stretched out and wings back. My first thought was it's mating season but to my wonderment, a huge white and brown speckled gyrfalcon swept right by the picture window, head turned looking straight at me.
Our eyes met for a second and my knees quivered at the focused fierceness, knowing that if I was a small animal my life would be about to end by death from the sky. As fast as I could jump to my feet hollering “Falcon!” it was gone into the trees, the squawking ravens chasing close behind.
There have been other birds around the yard. A little wood-pecker-like nuthatch has been bravely defending his spot at the bird feeder for a couple of months now. Thereare also two magpies, the whiskey-jacks and chickadees, all busy cleaning up the yard. A few weeks ago a whole flock of Bohemian waxwings made a visit to harvest our berry field. We have never seen them here before so it was a lot of fun being a part of their first visit to Reliance.
Several moose have been hanging around the peninsula and our freezers are full of their cousin Bullwinkle and there is still lots of meat left from Moxie the musk-ox too, which is a good secure feeling. But since meat is our most important food resource we are always on the look-out for more. The other day we went out for a sunny drive all around Fairchild Point, crossing at the short steep portage, leading into Charlton Bay. Our eyes were peeled for tracks of any kind, remembering the days when herds of caribou would come here every winter, followed by wolves, wolverine and fox. Since the forest fires of 2014, the caribou’s migration pattern has changed, and hunters have to travel far out on to the barrens to find any at all.
Crossing over to Sandy Point, we saw a whole lot of tracks weaving in and out of the shoreline willows, way too many for one animal. Pulling up close, we saw they were lynx tracks. Roger says only once in 45 years has he seen lynx here. We also saw ermine tracks and the spot where a raptor had killed it, only a few drops of blood between wings prints on the snow telling the true story. We also found the spot where the lynx had killed a rabbit, again packed down snow and blood spots telling the tale.
Zooming around the ice on snowmobile is the best winter activity in Reliance. Surrounded by the beauty of the islands and hills and cliffs, being the very first ones across the sparkling fluffy snow, fresh cold wind in your face is almost transcendent. Blowing away all the old dusty cobwebs in the mind so new thoughts can come in, breathing deep the purest air left on the planet, feeling the heartbeat of the earth, are all guaranteed to refresh a lagging soul in need of inspiration.