I awoke yesterday morning and looked out of the window of my shack. I saw fire in the sky to the southeast! It was one of our spectacular Yukon dawns of the kind that occur near the winter solstice, with a sky banded in violet and that indescribable pale orange-red that seems largely unique to the far north. So what if the days are short, soon they will start to lengthen again.
More troubling was the roaring chinook wind this morning that is rapidly eating up the snow with sustained temperatures of +3 Celsius. The sleddogs are taking an enforced rest. It's much warmer than they like for running, and we would only damage our trails by going out when it's this warm. I hope it cools off a little soon. Two or three years back we lost every scrap of snow in one of these December thaws, and it took several weeks for the snow to return.
These are the darkest days of the Yukon winter, when the sun barely creeps above the horizon for a few hours. If it's cloudy. it's almost like twilight. If it's clear, it's sunset all day long. Tempers flare, emotions bloom at this time of year.
But the dogs take it in their stride, and they are definitely hitting their stride now. The pups are coming along nicely with their early harness experiences, while my two main teams are gaining condition quickly. Trail problems are just about sorted out, and the leaders are no longer rusty.
Here's a lovely photo taken today by Isa Boucher of the M-litter team, with their mother Tonya at lead, teaching her son Maraq the trade.