Fall Melancholy

"If you are afflicted with melancholy at this season, go to the swamp and see the brave spears of skunk-cabbage buds already advanced toward a new year. Their gravestones are not bespoken yet. Who shall be sexton to them? Is it the winter of their discontent? Do they seem to have lain down to die, despairing of skunk cabbagedom? “Up and at ‘em,” Give it to ‘em,” “Excelsior,” “Put it through,”—these are their mottoes. Mortal human creatures must take a little respite in this fall of the year; their spirits do flag a little...I say it is good for me to be here, slumping in the mud, a trap covered with withered leaves. See those green cabbage buds lifting the dry leaves in that watery and muddy place. There is no can’t nor cant to them. They see over the brow of winter’s hill. They see another summer ahead."
Henry David Thoreau Journal, Oct.31, 1857

I am truly enjoying the "shoulder season," the time between the busy-ness of employment as summer paddling guide and that time in early December when I begin guiding with ski and dog team. The shoulder season is where I remember the long days of sun and the thankfulness for the long soaking rains of spring and early summer - Superior was finally rising, after being at an historical low point. The shoulder season is also looking forward to clean snows, dressed in warm and lightweight clothes and mukluks to keep off the frigid air; ski and snowshoe travel, sled dogs pulling on the narrow trails and blazing wood fires to be warm by.

The one human event that, for so many years threw me off my rhythm and made me feel the cruel finality of winter was the falling back of an hour with daylight savings time. Those years in Alaska, it was like losing an hour of daylight, and right in the late afternoon when outdoor chores had to be completed in darkness after a day in the classroom looking out at daylight. In the places I lived most of the time I would put on my trusty headlamp and it would be on my head until I got ready for bed. Living with kerosene lamp light and Coleman lanterns in Anaktuvuk Pass and for many years in Eagle, I am reminded of a poem that I know of from those days that captured the experience of living an Alaskan winter without the convenience of electricity:

A Winter Light

By John Haines

We still go about our lives

in shadow, pouring the white cup full

with a hand half in darkness.

Paring potatoes, our heads bent over a dream---
glazed windows through which
the long, yellow sundown looks.

By candle or firelight
your face still holds
a mystery that once
filled caves with the color
of unforgettable beasts.

Headlamps and later, mini-mag lights were indispensable tools. They brought light to the shadows! And what a convenience! To have bright instant light on your person with a twist or flip of a toggle switch. Thoreau would have been envious, especially if he could see the wall-mounted floodlights that I now use for outside chores in the winter.

There was one October, in Anaktuvuk Pass, when for no reason that I was aware of, the fall-back of daylight savings was not observed and the coming winter held no dread. The shortening days were better balanced in my life without the falling back of the clock. By mid-January I would have at least a sky-lightening at mid afternoon outside. I wondered why daylight savings time didn't keep on their summer schedule. I guessed the reason was because of the bulk of the population in the more mid- latitudes commute to work in morning daylight, working while the day is light, commuting home in light were some of the reasons. But for Alaska it doesn't make the same sense. One ends up going to work as well as coming home in darkness during the dark months of winter. Better, in my situation, to have mornings in darkness but having some light after work to be outside with daylight.
Nowadays it is less of a concern. As a guide of dog team trips,I operate with a concern toward utilizing the daylight with less regard for the clock time. When I'm at home I schedule most of my time to be outside in the daylight. I am blessed to not be tied to an inside job during the dark months.

Lynn, in being home with the children, and having a real need to be in the light of day for psychological well-being, would always get outside with the young kids during the height of the day. Bundling up the kids sufficiently to keep them warm in far sub-zero temperatures for sled rides into town tried most parent's patience. We never ran a motor vehicle other than a snow machine (which was a real benefit to living a village existence), so the half mile trip to the library, store, post office or friend's cabin was a journey that needed prepared for. Lynn made much of the baby and toddler outerwear because most of the store-bought clothing was not warm enough for 50 below. Those years of village life are fond memories now, but concerns for keeping little kids warm, the worry and struggle to get our young ones dressed, was a serious daily affair; one can make few mistakes with the imminent threat of cold injuries on young bodies.

With the signs of winter showing hereabout, and with so many of the aging and younger population oriented toward indoor and warm weather leisure activities, it is understandable but troubling that so many who are consigned to higher latitude areas become so unhappy as signs of winter appear. Life is too short to be unhappy for so much of the time.