Febrilary

The end of February has been a momentous time these last several years* -- it's the end of austral summer and most contracts in Antarctica.  As my first seasonal gig it set the timeline of October - February.  So this time of year means a return to green grass and grocery stores and, if you know what's good for you, glaciers.  Four years ago (previous Leap Day), a friend and I hiked up the Rees River valley in New Zealand.  The sunny days were almost painfully beautiful; we also spent a day at a refuge hut playing cards with our ten new best friends while waiting out a deluge of rain.

*this is the ninth time; my near-decade of seasonal life paused for a year back in Michigan, but don't worry, I still had a temporary food service job that fluctuated with seasonal tourism, and regularly involved cleaning bits of dough and canned tuna out of the sink.

The following year was when covid threw a wrench in everyone's plans, threatening plague and breaking down society.  I couldn't go to Antarctica, so I sought escape in northern Alaska.  A few months of burger flipping and truckers ranting about climate change hoax passed surprisingly quickly.  Despite the sense of the world collapsing, a friend and I decided to tie a bow on our Arctic winter with a ski-road-trip to Denali and Homer.  Much like my first season way south, I thought way north would be a one-timer, but the endearing familiarity of decrepit infrastructure and lackluster food combined with stunning scenery and unique recreational opportunities reeled me back in.

Some coworkers live here year-round, but I stuck to my usual cycle.  Four months is a good amount of time to thoroughly enjoy a place but not grow too discontent with repeatedly jamming a giant pipe cleaner into the fryer oil drainpipe to dislodge carbonized old hunks of chicken.  Four months is also when you qualify for a sizable bonus.  So once I reached that date, another friend and I headed to ski in Denali and I gave winter camping a try.

In partial honor of a significant birthday, last year involved a great deal of travel.  The end of February found me, finally, back in Michigan, to thoroughly wash my socks and dream up what would come next.  An apartment! Unlimited avocados and fresh pastries! A dating pool > 5! Swimming laps at a pool!  But, best laid plans, or whatever Bobby said...

It's the end of February and, as usual, it's about time to pack up, take a long flight, and do some fun stuff.  I will visit a glacier -- in the Alps! -- with more than a friend for company.

Crossing the frozen Koyukuk to climb up to tree line on the base of Coldfoot

Headed north past Sukakpak to our company's perfect little cabin on the edge of Gates of the Arctic National Park

Jace and Lars did the cooking while I blazed a trail on skis

Boos!

The Koyukuk winding south

Looking back down on camp 

The iPhone SE is not known for its photography, particularly in low light, but there's a smattering of aurora

Today's murder mystery on the trail: who dumped the body?!  Will they senselessly kill again?!

The Short Month

You can, alas, ski too much.  Or rather, if you ski for three hours and then go to work several days in a row, you will likely grow quite fatigued.  But it's tough to let warm days go by without enjoying the snow.  The sun has rebounded with shocking speed, we've traded pink-fringed sunset mountaintops for bright midday glare, and (lately) you don't even really need a jacket.  A few of us crossed the frozen Koyukuk to snowshoe-flail a path up the base of Coldfoot Mountain, and upon return found a bit of slush in our footprints.

We've started meeting in one coworker's room to listen to jazz and drink home brewed blackberry hooch.  Club 26 features a string of xmas lights and a few fake succulents for ambience.  Tonight we burned incense and pretended it was sophisticated cigarette smoke.  We're also planning a "funeral" for a departing coworker, to celebrate her time here, to have an excuse for a good dinner and party, to maybe read aloud some poetry and build a small igloo of ice blocks that another coworker has been carefully molding and stockpiling.

Aaaaaand...I'm getting pretty jazzed to go to France.  In about three weeks I'll leave this diesel-soaked boreal paradise of endless deep-fried delights, and have a crack at la vie en rose.

snowshoe crew

some aurora super solid for sure

Overflow on the creek -- not because it's warm, but the weight of the ice is squishing it out the edge

It's back, baby!

on the plateau

At 50 Below

- don't breath in too deeply

- steam and exhaust don't rise or evaporate away

- put Vaseline under your eyes

- wear more than one hat

- potatoes freeze on the bottom shelf

- bacon fat congeals even on the shelf over the stove

- soup is revered 

- the diesel pumps break 

- the water pump fails

- the ravens are fine

- we look out for each other

- -30 feels pretty nice 

nippy

the day the sun came back 

moonrise

Sarah did the boiling water thing!

Laissez-Faire

Once again, some twists and turns have found me nestled in a 70s wood-paneled former construction trailer, flipping eggs and skiing in the Arctic.  While I had been looking forward to living on my own for the first time in a while, dipping back into city life, reading physical copies of newspapers, swimming at a pool, meeting more than eight people every six months, a good reason to delay came along.

Instead of moving to Anchorage, I visited just long enough to haphazardly dig my car out from three feet of snow and sell it, then packed my things, and fled north to wait out the 60 days until I can legally return to France.  The country has long exerted a pull on me -- wine, over 1,000 kinds of cheese, myriad buttery sauces, Romantic classical piano, chivalric legend, the Norman invasion, tongue kissing -- and now one of its fine citizens has invited me to live there.  Ah, mais oui.

Jace's photo of Sukakpak

sunset and heavy equipment

airport sunset

Modigliani Exhibition

Late November, late afternoon sun reaches obliquely through the trees and guilds a smile already gold.  Coffee, bread, crossing the river, walking in step -- easily filled days short and cold.  Gazing at portraits, neck outstretched, dark almond eyes, her prostrate languor artfully told.  Wishing it was longer, wanting time to hold.

The Rain In Spain

For about 500 miles, yellow arrows mark the way between towns, through mountains, across the plains, and eventually to a big cathedral that may or may not contain the mouldering remains of St. James.  There are official mileposts with tile arrows, arrows painted on buildings and sidewalks, tags among overpass graffiti and stones, and, not infrequently, tattooed on the limbs of fellow walkers.  And if these markings are inadequate, as long as you head west, you're roughly on course.

Conversely, I thought often of the opening lines of Dante's "Commedia."  It begins something like, "In the middle of the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest -- the pathway had been lost."  The forest is not a literal one; the "journey" in the original Italian is "cammin," walking.  As I talked with more people along the way, most were at a personal junction: changing jobs, getting engaged, getting divorced, kids gone to college, retirement, a significant birthday, organizing ideas for a book, or more simply allowing ideas to organize themselves.  Without knowing the direction they would take upon returning home, at least for a few weeks they could wake up each morning, go outside, and know which way to walk.

I ended up walking with a group for the second half (my French friends plus two other women).  It rained almost unrelentingly, and we hunched our shoulders as ponchos flapped wildly in the wind and hail pelted our faces.  We ate a lot of soup, and collected chestnuts to roast.  We piled our laundry together, pooled our cheese and bread for picnic lunches, walked in varying pairs and as a unit.  Sometimes all the socializing drove me crazy and felt like managing the whims of high-strung children, but overall I was glad both to share the sights -- yellow and red vineyards, broad rainbows, thatch-roofed cottages -- and also to later remark upon things enjoyed in solitude.  And we can continue to talk about the path.

We had a delightful 18 minutes of sun that day.

Again, don't be deceived -- it rained most of the day.

Not pictured: comically poorly translated spiritual insights spray-painted next to graffiti 

Wait for it...

Rain!

heather(?)

silly Fiona

Yep.

Jean-Francois wisely kept his poncho on

Selected Notes

Please enjoy these sentences from my daily notes.  Sorry I seem to have a pee fixation.

- [In a mediocre dorm:] Gross, close, warm room, snoring and coughing, I would douse you all in gasoline and torch you if I could.

- [In my first private room, with my own bathroom:] I took a long hot shower that did not involve smelling anyone else's pee.

- Up a big hill with grand view of meseta and exhausted sunflower fields; had to pee off to the side in gale-force wind and some puddled on my shoe.

- [In a dormitory run by friendly nuns, all 80+ years old:] The nuns are the fucking best -- real butter at breakfast -- I ate about half a stick with bread.

- I washed my pants(!) and started reading "Brideshead Revisited."

- Woke up from a dream that I was dating an incredibly charming Ian McKellen.

- Fruit salad and a mediocre donut; off in the dark, crisp  morning; lovely pink sunrise; looks like Iowa.

- [Departing the city of Leon:] Smiling irrepressibly, caring naught for the rain and shitty urban landscape, chatting away as semi-trucks roar past on the highway.

- Never seen anyone eat an enormous ice cream-filled crepe with tequila chaser.

Fiona en marche!

There are trillions of petrified corpses.

Where to pee, where to pee?

canal

Behold, elevation change!

All I saw of Leon cathedral.

Welcome to Kansas...?

Ladies livin' large